Wonderful Wines and Scenery

Up for a quick breakfast (although filling one) as today’s adventure was to take us to the Franschhoek and Stellenbosch regions to do a wine tour.  Steve had pre booked us with Tsiba Tsiba private tour which meant we had a driver who took us to a number of wine farms depending on what we were interested in seeing.  The tour guide was a really lively and wonderful character called Elle who fascinated us with little facts about the area, the cultures and languages in South Africa and she took on us on an amazing drive through absolutely stunning and lush countryside.  I have to admit not really having high expectations of the countryside in South Africa and having perhaps quite preconceived ideas on what the landscape would be like – either way I did not expect such beauty.  We had gorgeous blue skies, amazing green and lush landscapes, hills, mountains and valleys.  Fabulous!

The first wine farm was Haute Cabrière where we sampled some of their sparkling wines followed by a really lovely lightly oaked Chardonnay (normally I hate Chardonnays but the wooded flavour was incredibly light so it tasted more like a Chablis).  Lastly was a lovely dessert wine (which we bought!).  The views from this wine farm, again, beautiful – rolling country side, blazing sunshine – I could easily have sat there all day but we had other farms to visit.

Other places we visited were Anthonij Rupert, Rustenberg and Waterford Estate where we also had a little yummy chocolate tasting.
We steeled ourselves to look at the price list but these wines, these fabulous silky velvety reds which was so drinkable and lusciously tasty were about £4 a bottle!  Unbelievable.


We did a comparison for a bottle of Rustenbourg Pinot Noir which was £4 for the bottle and which is supplied to Majestic and Waitrose – as I do online shopping from Ocado I had a look and a bottle of this retails at £15 in the UK – We need larger suitcases as we just don’t have the room!  Gutted but we should have a look at Duty Free on our way home for some goods to carry on.

We did have a wee post winery snooze when we got back to the hotel then ate within one of the resort restaurants a Nobu where I enjoyed some very very lovely sushi.