Food and wine
Wine tasting in the Cape
Three estates, one long lunch, and a guide who drives.
A full day, or a half day from Cape Town
Western Cape
The Cape Winelands
Three hundred years of vines, an hour from the airport.
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl sit in a ring of mountains forty-five minutes from Cape Town. It is the easiest place in South Africa to spend two slow days, and the one guests most often wish they had not rushed.
The mistake people make in the Winelands is treating them as a day trip. Two nights here changes the shape of a whole holiday.
The valleys were planted by French Huguenots in the sixteen-eighties and the architecture has not moved on much, which is the point. White gabled homesteads under oaks, cellars dug into hillsides, and a scale that stays human. Most of the estates you will visit are family-owned and someone in the family will pour.
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek or Paarl
Stellenbosch is a university town with a serious food scene and the widest range of styles in the valley. Franschhoek is prettier, smaller and more polished, and if you have two nights and want to walk to dinner it is usually the answer. Paarl is the least visited and the best value, with a granite dome above the town that almost nobody climbs.
Whichever you stay in, we drive up the Franschhoek pass at some point. It is fifteen minutes off the route and it puts the whole valley below you in one view, which is the thing people photograph and the thing that makes the geography finally make sense.
With children
Better than it sounds. Several estates are set up for families, with lawns, ponds and a chef who will feed a seven-year-old at half past twelve rather than half past two. We pick those when there are children on the trip and put an afternoon in that has nothing to do with wine.
When it looks best
February and March, when the harvest is on and the valleys smell of fermenting fruit. April and May for the colour, when the vines turn and the mornings get cold. Winter is green, wet and quiet, with fires lit in the tasting rooms, and a good deal better than its reputation.
The practical detail
- How long to stay
- 2 to 3 nights
- Best months
- October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May
- Getting there
- Forty-five minutes by road from Cape Town International, about an hour from the city centre. Every trip we run drives it, because the alternative is a hire car and a tasting room, and that is a combination nobody should be in.
Local knowledge
Things worth doing here
Scenic
Helicopter flights
Twenty minutes over the peninsula, or a valley-to-valley transfer.
Twenty minutes to an hour, plus briefing
Itineraries that include it
7 days · 6 nights
The Classic Cape Week
The city, the peninsula, the Winelands and the whale coast, in one region.
7 days · 6 nights
A Cape Honeymoon
Seven days, two people, and a guide who knows when to disappear.
10 days · 9 nights
Ten Days in the Cape
The unhurried version, with time on the water and two nights on the coast.
More about this region
Often combined with
Cape Town
A working city wedged between a mountain and two oceans.
4 to 6 nights
The Whale Coast and Overberg
Whales below the cliff path, and a forest gorge on the way there.
1 to 3 nights
Worth reading
Planning ·
When to visit Cape Town, month by month
High summer is not the best month here, and winter is a great deal better than its reputation. A month-by-month guide to the Cape, with the trade-offs stated plainly.
Build a trip around this
Tell us where you are drawn and how long you have, and we will tell you straight what fits and what does not. Six questions, about three minutes.
We reply to every enquiry within one working day.