The Cape Winelands
Three hundred years of vines, an hour from the airport.
2 to 3 nights
Wine tasting in the Cape
Three estates, one long lunch, and a guide who drives.
The Cape has been making wine since 1659 and the interesting part is no longer the history. A properly built tasting day is three estates, not seven, with the cellar visits arranged in advance and someone else at the wheel.
The best wine day anyone has here is the one with the fewest stops on it.
A tasting takes forty-five minutes if you rush it and ninety if you do it properly, with a walk through the cellar and the person who made the wine pouring it. Lunch at an estate is two hours and should be. That is a day: three estates, or two and a long lunch, and it beats the six-stop circuit some operators still sell.
Who takes you
Fred, most days. He spent forty years working in the South African wine industry before he started guiding, which means he was in these valleys through the period when Cape wine stopped being a domestic curiosity, and he knows a good number of the people who made that happen. A tasting with him is less a tour and more a conversation with somebody who can tell you why this slope is planted to cabernet and that one is not.
Angie guides the same days and comes at it from the other direction, which is knowing exactly when a party has had enough of cellars and would rather be sat under an oak with lunch.
What we book
Estates that will host a private tasting rather than putting you at the counter with the coach parties. Usually family-owned, usually with a cellar you can walk, usually with someone from the family or the winemaking team doing the pouring. Where an estate needs booking weeks out, we book it weeks out, and a fair amount of that is Fred ringing somebody he has known for thirty years.
What to expect in the glass
Chenin blanc, of which South Africa has more than anywhere on earth and which is finally being taken seriously. Cabernet and the Bordeaux blends from Stellenbosch. Syrah from Swartland. Chardonnay and pinot noir from the cool Hemel-en-Aarde valley behind Hermanus. And pinotage, the local crossing, which has a reputation it earned in the eighties and has largely outgrown.
The practical detail
- How long it takes
- A full day, or a half day from Cape Town
- When it works best
- All year. February and March are harvest, when the cellars are working. April and May give the best colour in the vineyards. Winter means fires and empty tasting rooms, which plenty of people prefer.
- Who it suits
- No minimum age. Easy physically. Suitable for families. Several of the estates we use are set up for children, with lawns, ponds and early kitchen service. Tell us there are children coming and we pick from those rather than from the tasting rooms that will not welcome them.
Good to know
Where it happens
The Whale Coast and Overberg
Whales below the cliff path, and a forest gorge on the way there.
1 to 3 nights
Cape Town
A working city wedged between a mountain and two oceans.
4 to 6 nights
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.
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.
Tell us this one matters
Some of these set the shape of a whole trip. Say which ones you care about on the enquiry form and we will build outwards from them.
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