South Africa -- Day 7

We woke up this morning and unfortunately, I felt a bit of a bad cold coming on. I had been fighting this for a few days, since before I left, but it caught up with me. The cough was pretty bad. I luckily had some cold medicine in my bag and took this to try to get me through the morning. I had to be ready for today – it was Wine Tour Day! Jess and I went downstairs for breakfast and noticed how windy and cold it looked outside. And all we had brought was short-sleeved clothes. We were a little concerned! We asked the concierge if anyplace would be open this early to go buy something warm, but of course there wasn’t. However, the concierge had a solution. It turns out, we were the only ones on the tour today. We were, in essence, having a private tour! So he asked the tour guide to stop somewhere on the way out to wine country to get us something! Our tour guide, Fizel, was really nice and took us to a mall in Paarl. We went to Edgar’s Department store and both got zip-front jackets. I also picked up some cough syrup. Normally, I would not want to mix cold medicine, cough syrup and wine, but I was desperate.  We were ready to go. Fizel informed us that since it was just us two, we would visit three wineries instead of two – yay!

Our first stop was a winery called Fairview located in Paarl (Afrikaans for pearl, we found out). This first stop was a wine and cheese tasting. I started out with tasting a Pinotage Rose. None too thrilled with that, it was very dry. I moved on to a Chenin Blanc that was better. This was considered a summer wine with apple, pear and spice. Next was from their Goats Do Roam line, a basic white. I really liked this one, as well as the Rose I tasted next. Their prices were amazing (no import costs), so I ordered a couple bottles to have shipped home. We also tasted some really good goat’s cheeses, one with garlic and herbs that was to die for. I ended up buying a cranberry goat’s cheese that I am hoping I can get back into the States. It tastes like cranberry cheesecake! I want us to have it for a special night at home, a celebration or something!

Our next stop was Boschendal Wine Estate in Franschhoek. This place was beautiful. Normally, then wine tasting takes place outside under huge oak trees, but as it was rather windy out, we sat inside. Here, I tried five wines, as well: Boschen Blanc (a chenin blanc and chardonnay blend), a Chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend, a regular Chardonnay, a Blanc de Noir (which was a white wine made from red grapes, which I thought was really interesting), and one called Le Bouquet, a blend of Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc. I liked a couple of these and was going to order them to send home. My Mom, who doesn’t really drink much, liked one enough to want to order it! However, when we went to order, the girl at the counter told us it was much cheaper to order from the US distributor once we got home. She gave us the info and we were off to our final stop.

Last stop on the tour was Asara Wine Estate in Stellenbosch. This place was beautiful! This final stop was a wine and chocolate tasting, so we stopped first to pick out our chocolates, then head to the wine tasting area. This spot was absolutely stunning. It was outside on a patio over a lake. Off beyind the lake were the vineyards, rolling and rolling hills of them, all of this overlooked by a huge mountain. I couldn’t stop taking pictures! Here we tried three wines each. A Sauvignon Blanc, a Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc and one called the Spirit of Chenin, which was described as having “ripe peaches and toasted macadamia along with spicy cloves and cinnamon.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Anyhow, the problem we ran into here – the chocolates were so damn good, they overshadowed the wine! We could not get over how delicious the chocolates were! We ended up not ordering any wine, but going back to the chocolate shop to order a rash of those to take home with us!

Our wine tour ended here, and we were driven abck to our hotel. What a fun morning we had! When we got back to the hotel, we found out Table Mountain was closed for the second day in a row, due to high winds. So it looked like we were not going to get to do Table Mountain during our visit to Capetown. That was very disappointing. Instead, we hopped the shuttle back down to the V&A Waterfront to go back to the Robben Island Museum. When we came back from our tour the other night, the gift shop had closed and Jess did not get a chance to get the gifts she wanted. SO we made our way back there and picked up our goodies. Came back through the Victoria Waf Mall and decided to have a early dinner there. We went to a place called Willoughby’s which turned out to be owned by Fairview, the first wine estate we had visited today! We both had fish and chips. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel for an early night. Jess passed out for a nap around 5:30, I got some online things done and then we both got moving on our packing about 8:00. Put in for a 6:00 AM wake-up call to get to the airport for our flight out of Capetown back to Johannesburg. We feel we did the town up right, and got to see (almost) everything we came to see!