“Wine is Bottled Poetry,” or, Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch

Happy Travel Tuesday!

I posted a version of this post back in June on Claire’s blog, Somewhere… beyond the sea. And well, we are exactly at this point of my trip in South Africa right now, so I thought why not give you the walk through the wine farms I visited in the Western Cape! 🙂

After some wonderful time spent in Cape Town, we had the amazing opportunity to go house-sitting for one of T’s friend who lives on a vineyard in Stellenbosch, the heart of the Cape Winelands.

I mean look at this view? It’s pretty unbelievable!

We were both on vacations, so we took the opportunity to really enjoy ourselves and go for lots of tastings! We ended up going to 8 different farms in the surroundings! And I’m pretty sure we only grazed the surface. There really is something for everyone out there!

On one day we went to grab tea and dessert at La Motte, on another lovely day out we had a lunch at the Hillcrest Berry farm and tasted goat’s cheese at the Fairview Cheesery. On one of our last days in Stellenbosch, we also had lunch at Tokara and visited the Waterford Estate. All wonderful memories! Gosh, so much to tell and not enough time, I’m afraid!

On today’s post I wanted to share my two favourite tasting experiences with you – and if it isn’t enough do let me know 😉

ALL-ROUND FAVOURITE: SPICE ROUTE

A friend of T had recommended Spice Route because she said the prices were affordable and there was something for everyone. So it was actually our first outing of the week and perhaps the most diverse and interesting!

We started with the chocolate and wine tasting and it was great! The generous portions of chocolate were from everywhere in the world and paired perfectly with South African wines. If you’ve never wine tasted before they will let you know exactly how to get the best out of the experience. It’s pretty basic and delicious! Step 1: taste the wine. Step 2: take a bite of chocolate Step 3: take a sip of the wine again. The experience really shows you how different the wine can be when paired with food.

Afterwards, we adventured ourselves in the rest of the property. They have pretty much everything you might want to get your teeth into! In addition to the wine tasting, you could taste the traditional biltong – a cured meat that resembles jerky and you can taste Ostrich, beef or game meat. You could taste their beer and visit their brewery. And you could even go stuff your face with more chocolate at their roastery! I really liked this whole experience because there was a bit of everything and we definitely spent a lot of time there!

Spice Route, Paarl. ZAR 75, per person. (approx.. £4)

CHAMPAGNE TASTING: JC LEROUX

When T told me that they did a sparkling wine tasting, I was so excited! When I learned it could be paired with marshmallows, my excitement level went through the roof! On October 31^st, instead of celebrating Halloween (which, I was told, isn’t really a thing in SA anyways) we headed to JC LeRoux for some bubbly.

The whole experience was superb! We waited patiently in a fully hot pink room (which I loved!) for the server to set up our booth and lay out our champagne flutes and pairings.

There were 5 different wines and three of them were paired with marshmallows and the last two with meringues. I can’t describe how amazing this all tasted. My sugar levels were probably through the roof! Usually at tastings, you don’t drink the WHOLE thing, but I drank every last bit of bubbly that was in front of me. How could I waste such delicious wine!

JC LeRoux , Stellenbosch. ZAR 60, per person. (approx. £3.5)

That week in Stellenbosch was definitely a highlight of my trip! We had so much fun and I loved that we were able to treat ourselves to some delicious treats like these, while discovering the surroundings.

Have you ever done a wine tasting?xx