Cape Town Day 3

Today was our “Wine Tour” day in the Stellenbosch area. We were up at 6:30 for our showers and breakfast. Pick up was at 8:15 am and we were on our way. One stop down by the V & A Waterfront to pick up two more folks for our wine tour.

We headed out of town on Hwy 1 towards our first stop at Anura Vineyard. This is one of the many wine producers in the area and we were treated to a great tour of the facility, the barrel room, crushing room and fermentation tanks.

Our onsite guide was Francois and he gave a great presentation on the process of wine making, blending, aging and finally tasting.. our favorite part:-) Following the tour we were treated to a sit down sampler plate of fine cheeses and numerous wine tastings. Although Kelly and I are white wine drinkers we did sample several reds as well as a nice port. Our cheese plate also featured small french bread along with several condiments of fig jelly, garlic jelly and a carrot something or other. The fig was my favorite:-)

Francois explains the barrel process.

The fermentation tanks.

Filtering machine.

We bought a bottle of wine and fig jelly and headed to our next stop of Franschhoek. We had 45 minutes to wonder the local streets and check out the small shops that lined the main town road.

Too bad it was closed:-(

Buildings in Franschhoek.

Main church in Franschhoek.

Next up was as stop at Tokara Winery and this place was unreal! Gorgeous grounds with an immaculate tasting room adjacent to huge filtration tanks. Large windows overlooked a vast hillside of grape vines. Sadly the low cloud blocked the fantastic mountain ranges.

Heading in for our tasting. Incredible.

Vineyard views.

No expense was spared here!

The tasting room feature a huge mechanical clock that was a work of art in itself. Kelly wanted to take the huge fireplace home... too bad she’s already maxed out on baggage weight:-)

Kelly gets comfortable.

Now that is a fireplace!

Wow!

Clock

Clock mechanism.

Next stop was the town of Stellenbosch were we had a couple hours to have lunch and explore the shops. Aside from being a famous wine region it is also a university town as there were many students everywhere. We did a bit of geocaching and shopping then headed for our last stop, the Vergenoegd Estate Winery. It is pronounced Fer- huch...... ah forget it!  There is no way to write it out:-)

Artwork in the park in Stellenbosch

Stellenbosch

They gave us a great wine tasting and explained the process for maintaining their vineyard. They use a huge flock of flightless ducks that pick off the many snails that love to eat vines. They use these ducks as a “natural pesticide” and heard them out to the fields.  They even showed us some baby ducklings as well as fertilized eggs... a little more than we bargained for but interesting none the less.

Vergenoegd Estate Winery dates back to 1773... feeling old here :-)

These plagues identify historical buildings.

Kelly gets the full tasting as our driver Sim looks on.

Snail eating ducks!

Once home we had a drink and relaxed before heading down the street to the Duchess of Wisbeach Restaurant. It was very good as all the Bleackheath recommendations have been. Back to the room to blog and relax as we prepare for our wildlife tour tomorrow.