The Winelands

On Friday, I went on a tour of four different wine farms in the Stellenbosch area (there are 250 around here in total). I got to taste all different kinds of wine, and some of them I thought were pretty good, but by the end of the day, they started to lose their appeal. haha. But it was cool; I learned a bit about the winemaking process and some history of the wine farms, and also got to ride around the beautiful countryside. Each of the wine farms we went to was about 20 minutes from the next, and as we drove in between them, we'd pass several more vineyards that weren't on our list. The winelands are beautiful - wide, flat expanse of fields with mountains all around. Some of the vineyards are very old: one of the ones we went to was founded in 1685.

At one of the vineyards we went to, Fairview, in addition to the wine, there was also cheese sampling available. This particular farm has over 600 goats and some amount of cows. Their cheese was great!






The "goat penthouse" at Fairview. Supposedly, if the goats had been "good" goats all their lives, they got to retire at the penthouse. When I first got there, all the goats were on the ground below the tower, so I didn't know they actually went up the spiral ramp. Later, when I came back out, they were all up there! It was quite a sight. haha




Barrels where the wine ages. Most of them are made of oak. The farm has tried to grow its own oak trees, but they grow too fast and the grain of the wood gets to be too spaced out quickly, which isn't good for aging wine. Instead, the farm gets most of its barrels from France and the USA, at R7000-9000 each (over $1000 USD).












Me! haha


One of the vineyards also had a lemon orchard.








These pictures really don't do the winelands justice.

This weekend is Stellenbosch's sixth annual wine festival. Therefore, there were a lot of tourists in town on Saturday. This drum/choral group was singing near one of the restaurants. My mom especially should like this video since she wanted me to find someone playing the drums - stereotypical African image. haha

(If the embedded video above doesn't work, check it out on Youtube.)