Africa Day 5 Stellenbosch wine region 10th July 2018

We love travelling to different wine regions and tasting the wine.  Today we tried many a wine and ate lovely food.  Was another good day and a great way to finish off our time in South Africa.

Stephen picked us up at 8.30am and we headed out to the town of Stellenbosch, 50km east of Cape Town.  There was a thick fog (glad we weren’t flying today), but it had burnt off by 9.30am around the time we arrived to meet our guide Juliana.   She works at the University and was born in Stellenbosch and said she loves sharing its story.

Stellenbosch was founded in 1679 by the Dutch as a trading town for the East India Company.   It has hundreds of well maintained old buildings and old oak trees and was a delight to walk around.   The population is 160,000, 35,000 of those attend the University.  They have 4000 international students and  9 faculties.

Slaves built a lot of the town in the 1800’s.

On our walk around town we went into an old butchers shop and tried some Biltong (dried meat) and sausage.   Was nice.  Juliana’s sons hunt springbok and she makes this herself, she was surprised we didn’t know of it. 

Nelson Mandela visited Stellenbosch  for 2 days in 1996 on 25 October and received a doctorette in philosophy.    It seems to us that Mandela visited many towns and they all have a story to tell of his time there.  He is spoken of with reverence.

It would have been lovely to spend a couple of days here, there is a lot of history and it is a beautiful town.

Next we headed to some of Stellenbosch’s wineries.  (The largest wine region in South Africa – there are two others)  Waterford winery was the first.  We  did a wine and chocolate tasting (our first, we enjoyed it) and had a tour of the winery.  The guy that we did the tasting with said they see very few Australians unless it is for a sporting event, felt like we were a novelty.  He was interesting to chat too.

We headed to UVA Mira next, I enjoyed their Chardonnay and the view.  The mountains are the backdrop of the region, the scenery is stunning.  I think all wine  regions that we have visited are beautiful but these mountains take it to another level.  

We had lunch at Guardian peak, was delicious and another lovely view.   I had Eisbein, which is pork hock that was slow cooked.   I have never had that before, was delicious.   Greg had Eland (antelope) shanks, we saw these at Cape Point yesterday, they were also tasty.

Last stop for the day was Annandale winery, owned by a 1980’s Springbok Rugby player Hempies Du Toit (a front row forward).  We enjoyed it here the most.  It was very rustic, (the other 3 wineries we visited were highly manicured) the wines were 10-15 years old and $10-$20 a bottle.  The wines, only reds, stay on oak for 7-10 years, until Hempies thinks they are ready.  He is not interested in making lots of money so he sells them cheaply.  He is quite a character.   The winery building is 330 years old, built in 1688.  The Shiraz was very good and Greg enjoyed the Port ?  a great way to finish our day.

– You pay for all wine tastings in South Africa, you sit at a table and have a flight of 3-5 wines.

– They don’t call them wineries, they are referred to as wine farms.

We drove past long stretches of shanty towns on the way back to Cape Town.   They seem to have begun/increased in number since the end of apartheid (1994).  There was nowhere else for people to go so they set these towns up, using any materials they could get, water and toilets are shared   Electricity is stolen.  From my reading about 2 million people live in these towns.  Over recent years the government is reclaiming the land and building low cost housing for the people instead.  These are much more sanitary, but now they have to pay for water, electricity etc.   There are high unemployment rates here.   The leader of the government has changed recently, hopefully conditions will improve.  Such a complex situation.

I have learnt a lot in the short time we have been here.  I am interested to learn a lot more.

We got back to the hotel about 4.30pm, we said our good byes to Stephen.  He was an interesting and knowledgeable guide.

A few days ago we booked a complimentary wine tasting at our hotel bar for this evening.  A bit much really after our day.  But we went anyway ?

Glad we did, Marlvin did the tasting, he was very knowledgeable, we tasted 3 really good wines and met a lovely young couple from London.  Afterwards we went down to the whiskey bar in our hotel for some tapas.  Nevan looked after us, he was very charming, we sat outside overlooking the marina  and enjoyed a couple of delicious dishes.  One of them was Ostrich carpaccio, we are on a roll!

We leave tomorrow.  Cape Town has been memorable, glad we came.    Looking forward to exploring Victoria Falls for a few days.

 

 

 

 

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