Advertisement
Published: June 17th 2017
01 View
The view of the Fairview gardens.Geo: -33.906, 19.1148
This morning we got up early and had our breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. I was really looking forward to today as we were doing a tour of the winelands. I remember the beautiful scenery and historic towns from my last visit a few years ago. At about 8am we were picked up by our tour guide and drove out of the city. We were really lucky to have a young chick as our tour guide and we were the only two people on the tour today. She was interesting to listen to and had a passion for her job. We got off the freeway and then the beautiful scenery was visible - Paarl Mountain nearby and hills covered in vines.
The first winery of the day was Fairview. It was very pretty here and they have picturesque gardens. The most unique thing about Fairview is the goat tower at the entrance to the building. It was built in 1981 and was the second goat tower in the world to be built at a winery. The few goats that live here represent about 1000 goats that provide milk for the delicious Fairview cheeses. This winery was the first one
02 View
The view of the Fairview gardens. in South Africa to make cheese from goat's milk. This winery is owned by the Back family who bought part of the current property in 1916. Wine was produced here in early as 1699! The first Fairview labelled bottle was sold in 1974.
After watching the goats for a few minutes and photographing the garden we were ready to taste. Inside and to the left of the entry is the deli - I could see and smell lots of cheese..... We did a little walk around and then sat down at one of the three tasting pods. In the end we ended up tasting 6 different wines and the glasses were quite generously filled. After a few wines we took a break and moved into the deli and tasted lots and lots of cheese. They were all delicious and even though I had eaten breakfast not that long ago, I found an appetite for these cheeses! We went back to the wine tasting and decided on which bottles to buy. I think this may be the earliest time of the day that I have ever had a drink.
We had to leave - there were many more wineries to visit! We
03 View
The view of the Fairview gardens. drove through Paarl and about 20 minutes later we arrived at the Solms-Delta Wine Estate. Wine here had not been produced for many centuries until Mark Solms arrived in 2000. This winery was also located in a beautiful scenic location - surrounded by mountains. We sat outside in the shade of a large tree. The staff served us the tastings as we took in the view of the mountains and vines. Once we finished our tastings our guide took us for a quick walk through the museum. The museum displayed the estate's 320 year history, it was interesting, but not what we were interested in today. We bought a bottle and then hit the road again.
In about 20 minutes we arrived at La Pommier restaurant. Lunch was included in our tour package. We enjoyed a nice, peaceful lunch and once again we were surrounded by mountains and vines. With full bellies we were ready to see more of the area.
Only five minutes down the road was our next stop, Tokara Winery a relatively new winery. This winery was very busy compared the others we visited today. Tokara Winery was located on a hill and had an amazing view of
04 Goat Tower
This goat tower is home to a couple of goats. the surrounding hills - full of vines and olive trees. We tasted a few wines and I tasted some olives - Rach can't stand olives - lucky me! We still had one winery to go and decided not to buy any wine here, instead I bought 2 blocks of coffee flavoured chocolate, yum yum!
Once again it was only a twenty minute drive to our last stop for the day. Our last winery was Villiera Wines, a family operated winery since 1983. Before we could taste any wine, we were taken on a tour to see how they make the popular Methode Cap Classique - a sparkling wine. It was an interesting tour behind the scenes and then finally we got to taste it! As we sipped on one of the last few wines of the day, we chatted about this being the life!
Our guide gently broke the news to us that it was time to leave. We bought a bottle of Methode Cap Classique and got back into the minivan. In about 40 minutes we were dropped off at our hotel. We dropped our wine bottles in our room and headed up to the rooftop bar at the
05 Hiding
A goat hiding in the tower. hotel and enjoyed a couple of happy hour cocktails.
Later on in the evening, we went for a walk down Long St and had dinner at Mama Afrika.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0339s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
