Wine Tasting In South Africa

Week 33

Day 222

Cape Town South Africa

33.9253° S, 18.4239° E

It’s turning to fall very quickly in South Africa, which is nice because I’ve never spent fall in a beach town and it’s a cool experience.

It would be kind of nice if it was a little warmer, but there is still sun and it’s fun to have the leaves changing in contrast with the sandy beaches and blue water.

Fall season is also an awesome time to go wine tasting and Tom and I have been able to get away and explore both Durbanville and Stellenbosch, two of the wine regions near Cape Town.

Our first trip out, we hit up Durbanville.  According to the locals, Durbanville isn’t “true” wine country but we still had a blast.

The first winery we went to was Durbanville Hills, where we did Chocolate and Biltong Wine Pairings.

Obviously the only thing that could have made this better would be a cheese pairing as well.

Luckily, our Next stop DeGrendel offered a cheese plate!

Both experiences were awesome, but on a clear day, DeGrendel definitely has the best view as you overlook Cape Town and Table Mountain.

Wine tasting inspired us to do our own cheese and biltong pairings at home.

Slowly but surely, Tom is starting to like red wine which is awesome as I’ve always been a red girl!

We’ve had a lot of fun enjoying the South African wine as the at home tastings have happened more than once!

With Tom’s taste buds expanding, we figured we should hit true wine country which is just over the mountain from Durbanville in Stellenbosch.

Durbanville is known for their whites, but Stellenbosch is known for their big reds including Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage, and Shiraz.

Knowing it would probably be a better idea not to drive, we hired a driver for a couple hours to take us from place to place.

Travelers Tip:  Hire a wine driver to take you around.  Not only do they know the best wineries and can arrange biltong and cheese pairings for you ahead of time, but it’s only R800 ($80) for the whole day per driver.  If you get 4 people that makes it a pretty good deal and I believe it only gets better the larger the party because you can also hire vans.  

This was definitely the right decision as our favorite winery, Ken Forrister,  allowed us to taste the whole  range which ended up being 12 wines!

Not only was there a large selection to taste, but when the farm’s pourer got overwhelmed the viticulturist, Dan, came over to help us and he had a pretty heavy pour.  (I think some of my friend call it a Doughty pour? 😉 )

Anyways tasting with the Dan was awesome because we also got a private tour of the cellar as well got to taste some of the wine at different levels of fermentation.

Obviously, you can never predict when you get special treatment like this but it always makes for an awesome experience!

Traveler’s Tip:  Every wine farm we visited had tasting fees.  They varied from R10-R100 ($1-10) but were always waved if you bought a bottle and most bottles are under R100 and many wines could be found for R50 which sometimes was less than the tasting fee.  

From our experience, there is no way you can go wrong tasting in Stellenbosch.  Every wine farm we went to was great!

Keeping with our South Africa wine experience, our favorite beer and burger joint offered to cook us a gourmet dinner.

Not knowing what was in store we showed up to a slow braised beef dinner, paired with red wine, salad, and potatoes.

To top that off, they had also made us a special pistachio and chocolate cake for dessert.

As you can see, it’s very easy to eat and drink well in South Africa, so Tommy and I have upped the fitness routine.  (I need to get back in shape for Nat Nat and Nick’s wedding!)

Our rule has been to run 1 mile for every beer we drink and we’ve also thrown some crossfit style workouts into the mix.

We’ve also kept up with our yoga sessions. 🙂

We’ve been working on doing yoga together each night before bed.  I’m happy to say Tommy is becoming quite the little yogi! 😉

Here are a couple more epic photos from the last couple weeks:

That’s all for this week!  Until next time, take care!

We love and miss you all!