A Vineyard in Franschhoek

A couple of weeks ago, before we left Cape Town, we went with a couple of friends to the Wine Country around Stellenbosch for a couple of days. The trip was wonderful – the weather perked up for the first time in over a week. We got out to Franschhoek around noon. The name translates as “French Corner” and for those lucky few coming here for Christmas is where we almost rented a house but then decided not to. Well, the bad news in that regard is that Franschhoek is really beautiful. We checked into our cute B&B and ambled out of town along a quiet country lane to a vineyard. The surroundings were eye pleasing to say the least – the town is in a quiet valley surrounded by 300 degrees of rocky mountains and full to the brim of vineyards. Our first tasting was about R15 ($2) and yielded a tasty Sauvignon Blanc. We then stopped for lunch, at our B&B host’s recommendation, at the Vineyard Brasserie.

Vineyard Brasserie

We were the only people there, the sun was still beaming down although it was cool in the shade, and we had an amazing lunch (yes, with another bottle of wine of course) rounded off with a cheese plate with the most interesting ginger-watermelon chutney. Yum.

This little guy was at the Brasserie with us

We whiled away the rest of the day with a further wine tasting, quick game of Uno and a ridiculously brief dip in the freezing swimming pool. Dinner at Reubens was excellent – it’s supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the country although personally I preferred our lunch, especially for the better vegetarian options.

Dessert at Reuben's didn't last long

The next day we drove up over the Franschhoek pass, pausing to admire the view over Franschhoek in the valley and to pick up a bottle of wine to give to our Cape Town host Priscilla.

The mauve-a-tron was in fine form as we wound our way down the back of the mountains and took the long way round to Stellenbosch, where we had a light lunch at Bean. Stellenbosch is the better-known center of wine country – there are approximately one billion wineries within the district. It is also a college town and much more metropolitan than Franschhoek.

We headed home after one last wine tasting, at Boschendal, which was not the place we thought we were going to but turned out to be a lovely estate. The wine wasn’t anything to write home (or blog) about, but perhaps by that stage we were spoiled and just being snobby about it. Over the two days we picked up quite a few bottles which have made it here to Mount Frere to comfort us on quiet nights in.

Tasting at Boschendal