Woke up today and the sun was shining, looked up at table mountain and there was just a hint of cloud on it, what the locals would call the table cloth. Today i am getting picked up to go on a wine tasting tour of Stellenboch, the mayjor wine producing area of South Africa, there are over a thousand wineries in the one area and i am aiming to visit everyone of them. Was picked up at 8.30 by our guide Bruce, don't know his full name he might have told me at some stage but after drinking my own body weight in wine last names seemd like insignificant details. So we picked up our other passengers a young couple on there honeymoon Mike(UK) and his wife Elese, Mike(Canada) and Igor from Bosnia, oh and me from N.Z, quite a mixture, sometimes when you go on these sorts of things the people who make up the tour can have a big impact on how enjoyable the whole thing can be but as i found out i had nothing to worry about.
So all the formalities out the way, you know what i mean... "hi, whats your name? Where are you from? how long have you been here? and off we go. The first winerie we stopped at was one of the oldest in the region named fairviews, it was owned by a jewish man who had brought it from a dutch man in the early 1700s, wine was introduced here by the dutch, when they first arrived here in the mid 1600s they brought with them grape vines and planted them on arrival, it took about 3-5 years for the first bottle to be produced but they haven't stopped since. We tasted about 6 wines and many different cheeses, the people here were really very knowledgeable about their wine and i have to say about there Rugby, as soon as they hear you are from NZ Bang!!! off they go, they know all our Super 14 teams and players, and i'm not just talking the whites, the black South Africans know just as much and have very educated and strong opinions on the whole thing, i was caught a little of guard, but soon made up for lost ground, remembering also we had just lost to them a few days before so i was fair game.
We left Fairviews and went to the first Black winerie owned by the blacks, and run by the blacks, its all part of the program to get them on an even playing field with the whites, not just in wine production but also business, education sport the whole thing. The wines here were pretty average but they have only been at it a short time, the whites have a 350 year head start, but it was great to to see them making a fist of it, and the place was beautifull, in fact all the wineries were amazing, they all had large Swiss/Austrian like lodges with restaurants that overlooked the vineyard, big roaring fires, and i mean big roaring fires with different game fur, skins and pelts adorning the walls, very masculine and very warm and inviting, you could just imagine back in the 20's all the men returning from the hunt having a cognac, and a cigar and sitting around the fire talking about the ones that got away, while the women prepared the big meal for everybody. All up we visited 5 Wineries and to be honest i cant remember the names of the last couple because by that stage we were all getting pretty carried away with the whole thing having a great old time, Mike(Canada) was writing a wine blog on some wine web site and had a notebook and pen out the whole time writing notes, so this encouraged the wineries to give us more, and to also crack open some of the more expensive stuff that they wouldn't normally open for a tasting, i later found out from Mike that that was just a front and he was just writing it for his own journal, but he had heard that it was good way to get extra tastings etc, safe to say me and Mike(Canada) got on like a house on fire, in fact we all did, Igor probably didn't know what he had got himself into because he was the only one spitting the wine out after the tastings, where as we were all drinking it, he eventually cottoned on and started drinking it and about 1 hour later was staring to slurr. We then stopped at a big Game lodge for lunch where i had some Sprinbok, yep thats right Sprinkbok, and i thought Australia was the only country that ate its national eblem, anyway to get through the guilt of it i just thought of the Rugby and proceeded to poplitely ask for 2nds. By this stage the wheels were starting to fall off and Bruce had resigned himself to just watching and laughing, i have not laughed so hard in a very long time.So another couple of wineries later and we headed back to my hostel and i invited everyone in for the "Braai" or a S.African BBQ, so we all had a great dinner and crashed out, i was absolutely buggered, oh we also stopped at a bar on Long Street, that had a roof bar with themed american style trailers from the 50s, all with bathroom bed, couch etc, we later found out its where you take someone you have scored in the bar below and can book the room/trailer for the night, its not a house of disrepute its just a rooftop bar with themed trailers, unbelievable!!!. Well that was the wine tour, more exciting stuff to come, bye for now.
