ONE YEAR ON THE ROAD - I'll drink to that
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
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Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Stellenbosch,
Western Cape,
South Africa
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Unless you know that you really don't like wine, you absolutely must go on a wine tour in South Africa. This in mind, we hopped on a train up to Stellenbosch to enjoy the Winelands and take a wine tasting tour. I'll be honest, it was my idea. In part I thought it would be a fun thing to do. But I've also never done a wine tasting exercise and I thought this could be my opportunity to find out if there was any particular flavor of wine that I liked. Travis concurred. We found a great deal at Stumble Inn - two nights in the dorm and a wine tour with Easy Rider for R430 (dorms averate R90/night, and we knew a couple of guys who took a tour out of Cape Town for R500, although they seem to come a bit cheaper out of Stellenbosch)
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. The weather in Cape Town was cold and dreary drizzle, so we decided that we might as well go have some wine, since that wouldn't entail being out of doors, and called to make a reservation. Easy as pie. The night we arrived we were sitting in the kitchen when three Germans, who had just arrived from Oudshoorn, entered to scramble themselves an ostrich egg. This provided an hour of entertainment before dinner, after which we crawled into bed. It was pouring down rain and my toes refused to get warm.
In the morning it was still drizzling steadily, but that didn't matter because we'd be in a van running around the countryside for the day. The group was huge, jovial, and under thirty. The spittoons were largely unused.
Our first stop was at Simonsig, where we had a cellar tour before learning how to taste our wine. A little wine-making background was good, but not sufficient for any substantive knowledge, so if you really want to know about wine-making I'd read a book before taking the cellar tour. My favorite part was the barrels of wine that were painted red in the middle because while the barrels are being filled a lot of wine gets spilled, so they just take a paint brush and make a nice, even application
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. Makes the barrels quite pretty. Fabulous factoids learned - you can only harvest cork once a tree is 44 years old, and then only ever seventh year, and the cork tree is the only tree with bark that grows back. Also, oak barrels must be imported (as must corks) because the climate of South Africa is too warm for them to make their own, and a barrel starts at R8000, which is more than $1000. These barrels can only be used for 3 years because the flavor dissipates. One more - one huge wine tank at this vineyard would last you 210 years if you drank one litre of wine per day. And there's obviously more than one tank, which means millions of bottles per year. This is a serious business. Next we had an introductory wine tasting lesson. It was more about like it or not than about what flavors pop out or whether the wine is 5 stars or whatever, so wine snobs should probably take a different tour. Anyway, now I know how to go about deciding whether or not I like a wine, so that's good enough for me. I also learned a little bit about how to choose the age that the wine should be (it's directly proportional to the time it spends in the barrel), so while I'm no expert, at least I should be able to prevent myself from buying any more wine that tastes just a bit too vinegary.
Travis and I between us chose ten different wines at the first three vineyards, giving us a great overview of flavors
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. Unfortunately it also gave Travis a little extra chore of laughing at and looking after his lightweight wife. What can I say? Our second stop was at Fairview, which also makes cheese (this excited Travis much more than wine, and I was able to pursuade him into purchasing some delicious soft cheese). A wine and cheese tasting combined with a goat tower (that's right - see photos), made this a very excellent stop. Everyone loves the goat tower.
Third stop, lunch. Unlike all other tour meals, this one was seriously, like, a meal in a nice restaurant. And included was a beverage of wine or beer. Unheard of. I never got my wine, cause I ordered red and the only thing that appeared was white, but Travis decided this was a good thing and let me have some of his beer. I told him he had to have beer with his lunch because wine just wouldn't go. Ha.
By this point everyone was relaxed and enjoying the day, but at the same time the day seemed to be nearly over, which I guess it was. We stopped at Dieu Donne, where we met a pair of Alaskans, except that the man was actually from Mankato, Minnesota. Jeezy peets. When the world gets small it gets really, really small
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. (For those not in the know I went to college twenty minutes away from Mankato, which was the only place we could go for any serious shopping or movie viewing, and it's really not a big town itself, which is why the world is so very small.) Turns out he was also a state senator who knew Sarah Palin and it took all my powers of self-posession not to make a face in case I got in trouble. Life is so unexpected. So that was an interesting interlude. Finally we were taken to Boschendal, where they decided for us what wines we would have. I once again was given Sauvignon Blanc, which was by some miracle the only Sauvignon Blanc I found palatable. Just goes to show that it never hurts to try. In truth, the best aspect of this winery was the grounds. The Winelands have some great 19th century architecture, all whitewashed, and it makes for a totally romantic and picturesque scene. At this point the sun also decided to come out, which made everything bright and pretty for us.
We were bundled into the van and returned to Stumble Inn, whence Travis and I decided to take a jaunt about town. I highly recommend this, as the town itself is adorable and quaint, and really just as a college town should be. (If you're not American then I suppose it's just what a university town should be...)
South Africa is proving to be an incredible place.
Erin
