The Cape winelands

After breakfast we were collected by Clive our driver/guide and we headed off to the winelands. This covers a large area but is mainly concentrated around Stellenbosch, Franchoek and Paarl, and our first stop today was at KWV in Paarl. KWV is different in that it is not a wine farm growing their own grapes but rather is a wine cooperative whereby they buy grapes from a variety of farms and make their wines from that selection of grapes. Twenty years ago it used to be the biggest exporter of wine but now the wine legislation has changed so many other small farms also export their wines. Their cellars and wine making areas are enormous, it is done on such a large scale like nothing else we have seen before. The first extra is of one of the maturing areas of the wine, but we went into other halls where they have enormous wooden vats each holding around 220,000 litres of wine. We then did a wine tasting of four different wines, a port, a brandy and a liqueur. I don't drink wine so I could taste and spit. The port was outstanding and we bought a few bottles, and paying in pounds it is all ridiculously inexpensive. 

From there we went to Plaisir de Merle for another wine and nougat tasting. We were running late from our previous wine visit, so we had to hurry up at this tasting. The nougat was very unusual and delicious, and it was paired with the wines. 

Our third estate was the very popular Babylonstoren, which is so much more than a wine estate - it has extensive gardens with unusual plants, a medicine garden, many cycads, an interesting shop and butchery, and two restaurants. We had booked lunch at Babel where all the food served is sourced from the farm and the food was quite delicious. We had excellent and friendly service as is the norm here although the meal took a bit too long, so we actually decided to miss our last wine tasting venue of the day and rather go to visit Stellenbosch. We had a brief visit there, the youngsters wanted to walk around to see some of the university buildings as the university is very much part of the town. 

This image is taken of the Simonsberg mountains which surround Franchoek with the vineyards in th foreground. The last extra is of Babylonstoren showing the Cape Dutch architecture.

All the places we drove past or visited today were known to me as I lived in Cape Town for a couple of years after I finished university nearly 40 years ago! Some of it is just the same and some is quite changed. Cape Town is still a beautiful city and is quite different to the other cities in South Africa in that it is clean, efficiently run by the local council (which is the only city that is run by the opposition party the DA as opposed to the ruling ANC party) and feels quite cosmopolitan and vibrant. 

We got back to the hotel just before supper time, so after freshening up we then walked to the V&A Waterfront for supper at Harbour House. There are so many restaurants there, most of them serving excellence seafood so we really are spoil for choice.