Charlie and I got up early and had another lovely breakfast. Good food and beautiful surroundings. Mr. Singh builds very nice hotels. Lazarus came at 9 AM and we began our wine tour.
Our first stop was Plaisir de Merle. The building was an old Dutch farm building with lovely red stone floors and carpets. Kind of like the den in our house in California except three times larger. Since we got there too early to taste, we were offered coffee and just relaxed. Wonderful room for relaxation. There was a wine-serving novice who poured wine for us. When we asked her questions, her fellow wine servers helped right away. Nice feeling about the place. At the end we asked about shipping to the states. Yikes. $$$ All I kept thinking about was sending the bottles across the Atlantic and around Cape Horn - OK - through the Panama Canal. I think they actually get shipped to a Southern port in the US and trucked across the states. Apparently, more South African wines go to Canada than the USA.
Lazarus asked if we'd like to try some local cheeses. We did. They made a lovely, non runny Camembert that I liked a lot more than Charlie. We tried another local cheese which was a lot like a sharp cheddar. Another very nice cheese. The cheese lady talked to Lazarus about some awful fires that were burning in the area. Fortunately, we didn't see these.
Our second winery was the Rustenberg Winery. We sat in a farm yard with lots of old Dutch farm buildings and had another lovely, gentle, slow wine tasting. No one rushed us, and I was able to wander around and take a few photos while wine tasting at the same time!
Our first stop was Plaisir de Merle. The building was an old Dutch farm building with lovely red stone floors and carpets. Kind of like the den in our house in California except three times larger. Since we got there too early to taste, we were offered coffee and just relaxed. Wonderful room for relaxation. There was a wine-serving novice who poured wine for us. When we asked her questions, her fellow wine servers helped right away. Nice feeling about the place. At the end we asked about shipping to the states. Yikes. $$$ All I kept thinking about was sending the bottles across the Atlantic and around Cape Horn - OK - through the Panama Canal. I think they actually get shipped to a Southern port in the US and trucked across the states. Apparently, more South African wines go to Canada than the USA.
We had told Lazarus about Mr. Singh owning half (or more) of Franschhoek. He wasn't the only incredibly wealthy owner of huge chunks of land. Mr. Rupert and his sister owned miles of winery acres, horse farms, and more. Mr. Branson (Virgin Atlantic et al) owned another farm nearby. Charlie and I commented that we hadn't seen any locals yesterday on our walking up and down in town. The place seemed filled with tourists. Where do actual locals live? Lazarus pointed to an area about three miles up the slopes from town itself. An impoverished area for locals. The photos are below;
All the wineries were farmed by locals. In California there would be Mexican labor - here it's the local Africans.
Lazarus asked if we'd like to try some local cheeses. We did. They made a lovely, non runny Camembert that I liked a lot more than Charlie. We tried another local cheese which was a lot like a sharp cheddar. Another very nice cheese. The cheese lady talked to Lazarus about some awful fires that were burning in the area. Fortunately, we didn't see these.
Our second winery was the Rustenberg Winery. We sat in a farm yard with lots of old Dutch farm buildings and had another lovely, gentle, slow wine tasting. No one rushed us, and I was able to wander around and take a few photos while wine tasting at the same time!
This is a photo of an Egyptian goose. I thought it was an interesting bird. Lazarus told me they are incredibly common. Oh well.
The Dutch wine tasting rooms
Two ibises on the lawn.
The view from the winery.
After we had our second wine tasting we went to lunch. Unfortunately, since we have no receipts, we can't remember the names of the restaurants. Again, it was a farm house with a lovely garden. This is the warmest day we've had since we've come, and sitting in the garden having a meal was amazingly nice! Charlie and I had pepper steak with some of the best beef I'd ever eaten.
After a wonderful lunch, we were off to another winery. The Ken Forrester Winery. They specialize in Chenin Blancs. Another nice garden to sit in and another relaxing wine tasting. Of the four wineries we tried, this was probably our least favorite. Still, it had some lovely wines, we were becoming spoiled.
The view from the Forrester Winery
We began to drive back to Franschhoek, and Lazarus asked us if we wanted to try one last winery. We decided, just one more. On the way we passed by several schools. The finer schools were very costly, hard to get into and mostly for whites. They had better playing fields and nicer buildings The schools that were more for blacks were more beaten up looking.
We then passed by Stellenbosch University. A school that had beautiful playing fields, and from what we could see mostly white students. They apparently had an issue of what languages to teach in - English or Africaanz. The obvious problem was if you chose one of those and it wasn't the native language of the student, wouldn't they be at a disadvantage. yes.
I couldn't get photos of the playing fields which were quite lovely. Dorms and university buildings look alike world wide.
Our last winery was Grande Province. The wines from here were particularly nice. The garden in which we tasted wines had interesting art work. It was another relaxing lovely, late spring afternoon wine tasting. Now we need to find these wines in the USA or Canada. They'd be worth buying.
Gorgeous mountains all around the area. Apparently, it had been a plate tectonic collision zone while the continents were forming Pangaea. The remains of that collision left beautiful cliffs and mountains today.
Some of the art work from the Grande Province gardens. I was particularly fond of the one below.
We drove back to the hotel (Our Leeuhouse) and rested a bit. We'll walk down the street for a salad dinner. We leave tomorrow very early in order to get back to Cape Town airport for a 9:30 AM flight to Kruger National Park for our Kapama Safari.
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