Two days in the South African Winelands
 

We will be going in early September. My wife and I are wine lovers but not wine snobs. For this trip, we are more interested in the beautiful (architectecturally or scenically), historically interesting wineries than wineries that are necessarily currently making the best wines (great wines of course a plus). Would also appreciate advice on where to eat.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Where are you staying?

I can't recommend any particular wineries, but we LOVED staying at Le Quartier Francais in Franscheock and having lunch at La Petit Ferme.

Le3 Quartier Francais is supposed to be good for meals, but we only had breakfast there - but it was divine!!!!

I spent 3 nights at Akademie Street suites in Franschhoek, in 2007. We had an excellent meal at LQF main restaurant.



My report is a few years old, but I have lots of food/restaurant info on it.

http://www.fodors.com/community/afri...lsbotswana.cfm


The scenery of that area is simply glorious; combined with that Cape Dutch architecture: Wow!

This might help:

http://www.aka.co.za/whereToEat.htm

Dear Mdmgso: While it's been over a decade since I was there we had a wonderful meal at Vergelegen's restaurant & its wines are among SA's best and the estate is beautiful and over 360 years old. See: http://www.vergelegen.co.za/dine+with+us.html

Have a great trip. Bill

I have eaten several times at La Petite Ferme and it is wonderful.The view of the valley from there is unbelievable!

The Nederberg winery has a terrific tour and is one of the oldest wineries in SA.(They have a wonderful Pinotage wine which we continue to buy back here in Chicago).The grounds are gorgeous and they have a great tasting area.

Kanonkop wines have gotten alot of raves and our family loves their cheaper red wine called Kadette.

There is a great blue book of SA wines(something like Platters?) that you can buy either in SA or at home that is about $10 and has all of the wineries,their ratings,etc. to help you pick out where and when you want to go.We bought ours at a wine store when we were there in Hermanus but I have since seen it in grocery stores in Cape Town and J'Burg.

One of the places that we love to visit is over by Paarl and definitely worth a stop if you can-its called the Drakensburg Lion Reserve(or something like that?).It is a place that has taken lions from all over the world that have been abused or hurt(circuses in Romania,"canned hunting safaris",etc.) and lets them live out their lives free.You get to walk along the very large fenced in area to watch them just hanging out,eating,sleeping,etc. Great photos and the experience to see them up close and know that anything you buy there(whether it is a drink or giftshop) goes to their upkeep.The man who started it has devoted his life to help these beautiful animals enjoy the ability to be the way that they are supposed to be-without cages and with their friends.

For architecture Vergelegen is highly recommended. http://www.vergelegen.co.za/ It dates from 1700 and has camphor trees that they say are the oldest 'recorded' trees in Africa. They do wonderful picnics under (slightly younger) camphor trees, and have a good restaurant.

Right next door is Lourensford, which was originally part of the same property. Buildings are not so old, but the estate is beautiful - we are often there in December/January when the agapanthus are all in bloom, but it should be good any time. http://www.lourensford.co.za/

Nearer to Cape Town itself is the Constantia Valley.
http://www.constantiawineroute.co.za/home/vineyards/
Groot Constantia has a beautiful house, Constantia Uitsig has a very expensive, apparently very good restaurant, but we love the River Cafe, and often have lunch there.

Unlike virtually everyone else, we don't particularly like Franschhoek, possibly because when we are there (Dec-Feb) it's really hot. Also, since we live in France, the pseudo French atmosphere doesn't do much for us. But we do like Bread and Wine, http://www.moreson.co.za/bread-and-wine/

With only two days, you wont be able to do most of this, so should probably pick one or two areas that appeal - Constantia, Stellenbosch, Franschhoek.

Hi there, I thought you might find this article quite interesting: Cape Wineries: Off the beaten path estates.

Definitely watch the video - a great concept that creates employment. Well worth checking out.

http://www.mysafari.com/african-blog...-estates-4028/