Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch

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Who’s stolen the Sun?

We had great plans of relaxing outside our apartments, reading and letting the kids run about the garden but when we awoke it was to the sound of torrential rain, which sort of scuppered that idea. So instead after breakfast we went for a walk from the hotel to the wine estate and booked ourselves into a wine tasting session, kids too; they would be taste testing grape juices.

The Spier estate has a lot to offer - we wandered around the craft market, played pooh-sticks with the (aggravatingly enthusiastic) estate river, winced as the kids played on the adventure playground, and bought lunch from the site supermarket (which excelled in massively calorific desserts). The picnic service was suspended, though. We went back to the wine shop and were ushered into the wine education room, where a fully qualified wine educator from the estate was waiting to initiate our ignorant palates. This very nice chap talked us through the process of tasting wine properly, the brands and varieties cultivated by Spier, flavours, aromas and the dangers of drinking sweet wine. He did quite a good job because even the kids stayed interested. Typically we liked the more expensive varieties the most and decided against shipping some crates home when the more popular brands would be available at home in Sainsbury’s anyway.

The afternoon was spent eating lunch, playing outside (and falling over in the mud), subsequently having a bath, watching TV and blogging. All very relaxing. We gradually came round to the idea of dinner, and wandered back to the restaurant for a few drinks and another excellent meal - Annabel and Mark both had the fillet steak this time, and it turns out that Ellie was quite justified in her reaction the night before.

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Photos

Spier Hotel
Lobby