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Cape Town Part Two
“Smokey spice ushers in purple mulberry fruit, good grip keeps tie lines taught”
Reading this hotel wine list description (it was a Shiraz by the way but you already knew that) reminds us, if we needed any reminder, that Cape Town is different to most places we’ve encountered on our trip to date!
Heike & Clint’s house in Somerset West was perfectly placed to do some quick tours of the Stellenbosch & Paarl wine estates and vineyards. UK friends told us that this wine region is one of the most beautiful on earth and we have to concur. It is the mixture of mountains, rolling vine covered hills and Cape Dutch architecture dating back to the 17th century that makes this region look and feel like a wine lover’s heaven.
The estates make no charge or a nominal charge (£1.50) to taste between 5 and 10 wines. We’ve sat under oak trees, vine covered pagodas, in ultra modern tasting rooms and cellars and tasted all the main grape varieties and blends. Most have been good to excellent and nearly all are sadly beyond our current budget. This didn’t stop us buying far more than we can legally take over the Namibian border in early February.
We’ve accompanied the tastings with superb lunches often with staggering views across vineyards and mountains. What a shame we no longer earn money; we’d be down here for a serious eating & drinking session.
Fortunately the tasting sessions are very informal, so Angela got away with throwing the remains of her cabernet sauvignon in to the carafe of drinking water alongside the spittoon. However we can understand the French getting a bit annoyed about the “Goats Du Roam” marketing name employed by the Fairview estate, with reds labelled “Bored Doe”. They do actually have a cheese factory there, and we tasted them as well.
If you think that all we’ve done in Cape Town is wine tasting and lunching, that’s unfair, we’ve had dinner as well.
Much to Ken & Nancy’s dismay we returned to them for a further 4 days during in which time the Landrover was checked over ready for 3+ months in Namibia and Botswana. Those of you servicing vehicles in the UK, can you believe a labour charge of just £13.50 (R185) per hour?
We managed to do some more (you’ve guessed it) wine tasting in the Durbanville area on Ken & Nancy’s doorstep. These are smaller and more personal than Stellenbosch and one of the Chardonnays, Durbanville Hills, has been our constant companion over the last 6 months. Despite this we didn’t get a complimentary box off them.
On our final night we popped over to see Simon and Lyn again and they took us out for a Friday night in Cape Town, including a quick tour of the Cape Malay area and dinner at the V&A waterfront. Simon is a Yorkshireman with 20+ years in South Africa, which pardons his preference for ice cold beer!
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