A place filled with neatly lined grape vines. Wine estates, one next to the other. Wine tastings starting early in the morning, until late in the afternoon. Colours ranging from soft white over sparkling pink to deep red. Yes, we arrived in wine heaven!
Everybody with a little bit of love for wine knows that South Africa has a lot to offer regarding wine. And so these two days were completely devoted to this drink that you can apparently drink all day. Because Stellenbosch is home to a lot of wine estates, we picked out a little one that also offers accommodation, Knorhoek. And yes, a lot of knorring was done after all the wine tastings!
Our first afternoon we spend at Knorhoek, tasting three wines from the estate. Traditionally you taste a white wine, a red wine and a dessert wine. We tasted three excellent wines while we were giving professional advise from the sommelier. Our favourite was the white wine, which we also had during dinner. The sommelier gave us some tips of other vineyards that are worth a visit, so we could also spend our last day tasting away.
But first off all we had a wine tour by bike booked. We didn’t really know what to expect, just that we were going to ride a bike, stopping at three estates and tasting wines. We thought it would be this nice and easy ride through the fields with the wind in our hair, the sun on our face and a smile from ear to ear. All of the above came true, only in a slightly different setting. We found ourselves riding mountain bikes, over very bumpy earth service roads. With the wind in our hair going down (check, hair in wind). But what goes down must go up and so we faced a few challenges reaching the top of the hills while the sun was shining and sweat was starting to find its way out of our pores (check, sun in face). When we finally arrived, after two and a half hour, we couldn’t have been happier (check, smile on face).
The first estate we visited was Lovane. It’s a small estate with exclusive wines that you can only drink and buy on site. We took a brief look into the cellars and got some more explanation. But then our first tasting of the day finally began. White wines, rosé wines, red wines, dessert wines. We tasted a lot! Some of them we liked, others not so much. But you don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to, you just poor it away. But wouldn’t that be a waste of wine?
Our tummies were getting very hungry, so we made our way to the next wine estate, Neethlingshof. We had lunch (a bit too long though) and tasted some more wines. Five to be exact. Again white, rosé and red wines. Some we liked, some we didn’t. And after this second tasting it was time to head for our final destination and our last tasting. Unfortunately it was quite steep and I was quite eager to ride over the bumps that at some point my knee said ‘no, not doing this anymore' and I found myself on the side of the wine fields with a very badly aching knee. Riding wasn’t an option anymore so brave as I am I continued on foot, slowly but moving forward, to the last tasting. Little bit of a disappointment that was. It was the biggest estate we visited, Asare, but the least hospitable, since, contrary to the first two, no explanation whatsoever was given about the wine being put in front of us.
You can imagine that after all those tasting we really ‘knorred’ the night away. After breakfast it was again time to check out but we didn’t leave Stellenbosch right away. We first drove to one of the vineyards the sommelier had recommended and went for some sparkling wine tasting at Simonsig. We tasted about eight wines of which six were really good. We wished we could take some bottles home. Unfortunately we are not going home just yet. We have a lot more of traveling to do!
But first we have to finish our African adventure in Cape Town…
