Winery Tour Extraordinaire (long entry)


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Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » Stellenbosch
January 17th 2012
Published: January 17th 2012
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Day two in Cape Town! Woke early for our first Ambassadors meeting and laid the ground work for the rest of the week. I am on the Corporate Social Responsibility project and am tasked with defining the social outreach side of our new company. Super excited!

Enough about work! Awesome day outside of the Waterfront area and out into the country itself. Started with a bus trip up to Signal Mountain for a look at the town from 3000ft. The weather continues to be unseasonably warm for this time of year, but compared to back home it’s great. Signal Mountain was incredible and had views all around of the Western Peninsula and Cape. The drive up was scary as it was a very narrow, winding road with a lot of blind corners and no guard rails. Of course they drive on the left which was also unusual unsettling but we did survive.

The first stop was in Stellenbosch at one of the oldest wineries in S. Africa, SimonSig. Which is in the shadows of the Simon Mtn. range and means Simons view. We toured the facility right at the beginning of harvest season and saw a more traditional way of producing wine. While its highly commercial and they produce 1.5-2m bottles per season, the techniques are centuries old. We tasted a Caplisique (cap-le-seek) which is a champagne but since they are not in France it cannot officially be called a champagne. It was very tasty! Next we tried a Chenin Blanc white which was also very good and this is coming from a red wine man. The best was yet to come as we tasted Shiraz Mr. Borio named after a local settler and Tiara which was made from merlot, cabernet, and shiraz grapes. Both were fantastic and highly recommended. After the tasting it was back on the bus for stop number two and lunch!

We next headed over to Lanzerac for a very nice lunch. We sat outside and had a very nice sirloin, but the weather was approaching 100 degrees and there was no breeze today. After more wine and lunch we headed to a special tasting in the underground cellar where our wines were paired with….chocolate! What a treat. We had a Chardonnay, Rosie, Pintoge, and dessert liquor. All were wonderful and it was nice to be out of the sun. After a small visit to the gift shop we headed back to the hotel for a quick change on to the nights meal of traditional African food.


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Cork treeCork tree
Cork tree

Interesting fact that corks are actually pulled from cork trees who are a minimum of 24 yrs old but live til 350


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