Before I get into today, I must tell you about dinner last night. I was trying to go to a place I saw with a set menu with springbok on it, but accidentally ended up at French Connection, and by the time I made it inside I was hooked. It was so cute and made you feel like you were somewhere in the country in France. It was one of the rare places where you can have a really enjoyable dinner on your own. I ordered the mussels and fries, and I cannot explain how amazing they were. I had no idea the Cape was known for their mussels, but it was incredibly good luck I ordered them. They were at least three times as big as we get at home, and so flavorful and juicy. I could go on and on!! I finished by sampling two local cheeses - their cheddar was good, but not as good as in Canada!
Today was an absolutely splendid day. I am spoiling myself in anticipation of things being rather basic for the next (and last! Yes mom, I know you're happy about that!) three weeks of my wonderful trip. My guesthouse put on a fantastic breakfast (homemade granola is being added to the list of things I want to make when I'm home) and then arranged a guide to take me on a half day wine tour. Franschhoek has 47 wineries in town - and a population of only 16,000. Stellenbosch is a slightly larger town next door and has over 150 wineries. A lot of these are small and produce only 30,000 bottles a year.
Before I go any further, let me give you a map to make sure we are all (ahem, mom) clear on where I am:
Above is a map of all of southern Africa. Obviously South Africa is the most south. Tomorrow I am going to Namibia (Windhoek) which is just to the north.
Below is a map of just South Africa. I am in the Western Cape province, and was in Cape Town and now am nearby in the winelands (near Stellenbosch).
Okay, now that we are hopefully clear on that....today I visited FIVE wineries in about four hours. They were all very beautiful and had excellent wine (to my very untrained pallet at least). Unfortunately because it is winter here it is very off season so they weren't doing any estate or cellar tours, and also there was nothing on the vines, but it was still very lovely. Also, in their summer you can do the tour on horseback, which would be really lovely (ae). My guide, Bradley, told me a lot about the different estates and owners and made for good company while I tasted TWENTY FIVE different wines today.
The first stop was at Moreson, which means "tomorrow's sun" because it gets the first sun in the valley. There I tried my first pinotage which is a type of hybrid red that only grows in South Africa. They had to create it because the Pinot noir grape won't grow here. I really liked the pinotage I tried, and this was the beginning of my day-long conversion from white to red wine (!!!!)
This is the view from the tasting area!
Next stop was Solms Delta, named because it is in the delta of two small rivers. It is also just around the corner of where Mandela spent his last few years in prison. The best wine here was a Shiraz bubbly...I could have drunk the whole bottle. The conversion to red wine continued! They also had a lovely museum about the history of the estate and all of the people who worked there. Their restaurant looked amazing and I was hoping to make it back for lunch tomorrow, but I think I will have to leave too early for the airport. The guide really likes taking people here because they treat their staff really well, using 1/3 of their profits to their benefit...housing, education, health care, etc.
The third stop was the Cellar Door. I should mention that these places are all within minutes of each other. Quite incredible. But the soil here is like a micro climate, so all of their wines are very different (apparently). Again my two favorite wines here were red! They also had a huge art display of several South African artists which was fun to walk around, but not to my tastes.
The fourth stop was my favorite because we did a wine and cheese pairing. Very, very good. Bradley and I also had a long chat here about what is going on in South Africa today. He's the first person I have spent time with who is old enough to remember the apartheid and so this was very interesting. He said as a kid they had no idea anything unusual was going on. He has never been friends with a black person, because they were always so segregated. They would never even think to question why they didn't see them; that's just the way it was. The first time he even understood the implications was when he was in the navy and doing training on the beach and the police came to arrest the Indian members of his group for being in an area where they weren't allowed to be. And they were employed by the government! There is definitely no overt racism that I've seen on the part of the whites, but I'm sure it exists. Everyone is still "classified" by their race; it's very strange for it to be accepted by everyone to talk about where the blacks live and what the coloreds eat. And it sounds like in some cities (like Durban) there is reverse racism where the black police officers really don't care about crimes committed against whites. Anyways, it was a long and very interesting conversation. I can't believe we don't learn about this in school.
The final stop was at the Rickety Bridge, which was initially owned by a woman, unusual in those days. It was also very lovely. Their dessert wine was my favorite but they also had a pinotage that was lovely.
After all of that wine I recovered on my balcony for a bit before strolling around the small main street. I found a shoe store called Tsonga which sells leather shoes handmade by Zulu women in South Africa. I tried on a couple pairs of sandals and loved them both. They are incredibly comfortable. So I bought them both. Apparently there is a store in Vancouver, but nothing close to home, so I figured I should stock up if I loved them that much!
I'm now deciding where to have dinner...the Cape Malay place I wanted to try is closed on Sunday nights, so I'm still asking around for recommedations!
Awesome!
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