At 10:30am we began our wine tour, which consisted of four wineries with 5 tastings each and lunch. We went to
Simonsig in Stellenbosch, Fairview in Paarl, and Dieu Donne and Boschendal in Franschhoek. We hopped on a van with a funky guide/driver named tiki tiki (or something weird like that). Already in the morning he was playing funky rock and roll and dance music. Let's get the party started in here!
First stop - Simonsig @ stellenbosch
Here we learned a bit about how wine is made and south african wine history.
Here are some facts:
- South africa is the 7th largest wine producer in the world
- A dutchman planted oak trees in south africa to make oak barrels, but because of the sunny weather and abundance of rain the oak trees grew quickly and as a result were too porous for wine making. We surely did not experience the sun shine, but did get a taste of the rain. Did I tell you it's freezing here in South Africa? South African wineries import corks from Spain and Portugal and oak barrels from America or France.
- Grapes are harvested from Jan-Mar and sometimes extend to April. The grapes for white wine are usually harvested first, then the grapes for red because they need more exposure to sun.
- After stimulating the vines to grow by cutting the buds, it takes 90 days before you can see first signs of growth
- For white wines, the juice needs to be separated from the skin because the skin is very acidic.
- For red wines, the juice needs to be exposed to the skin for flavor and color. There is typically more sugar in the wine of south africa because the sun causes the sugar production in the grapes.
- The process of wine making starts with the balloon process of pressing the wine to separate the juice from the skin. The wine created from the first press is the most expensive because it has the most natural wine. The wine produced from later presses are usually the table wines.
- White wines are usually more refreshing because it goes through a slow low temperature fermentation process in stainless steel barrels or large oak barrels for about a month.
- A lot of whites are made to drink young. Chardonnay is one of the few white wines that is fermented in oak barrels for up to 10 months, hence it is usually more buttery and creamy than other whites.
- Reds can mature longer, and need to ferment in the oak to get more subtle flavors. French oak is more spicy and american oak is more sweet. Most wines are fermented for 2 yrs.
- Oak barrels cost R6,000-8,000 per barrel and can be used only 2-3 times. After usage, the wineries can sell it for R200-300 to people making bars and such. New barrels are used for the best wine, because the barrel losses its character with usage, just like the usage of a tea bag.
- Wines have three origins of flavors - grape, fermentation and oak flavor. All flavors are natural and description of wine taste and smell are just associations people make. Our guide calls it "the wonder of wine."
After all these fun facts, our first wine tasting commenced at 11:25am.
1 - 11:25am simonsig kaapse vonkel - sparkling white (R68). It's a bit sweet, but refreshing. Used to be the most expensive wine costing R3.50 and now it costs R60.
We learned white wine with green white shade means less sugar and less sunlight. White shade means more sugar and more sunlight.
Tasting technique - Don't swirl on a table, swirl in the air...smell it, sip it, run it through your palette, swallow and then look thoughtful :-)
2 - 11:35am chenin blanc - dry white (R28) light yellow, fluid and crisp (apple, pear). Was the superquaffer of the year. It's a new world wine. Also grown in australia and new zealand.
3 - 11:43am chardonnay (R52). It was fermented for 12 months in oak barrel. Steph doesn't like it but it's my favorite so far.
4 - 11:45am 2004 pinotage (46R). Red regional wine 86 yrs ago. Cross pollinated between pino noir and hermitage. It has a vanilla taste. It's Steph and my favorite wine so far. Good easy table wine.
5 - 11:52am - 2006 redhill pinotage (R125). It's supposed to be a really nice wine and smells like vanilla. Our tour guide called it orgasm for the nose. It has a nice after taste. I heart redhill pinotage.
6 - 12:00pm - We got a special treat to the 2001 Tiara - bordeaux blend veritas gold (R110). It was a special request from our boston friend hilary. After tasting, we still preferred the redhill pinotage. In the midst of tasting, the guide almost dropped a full glass on my bb. My fast reflexes saved it.
At the simonsig winery, there was a cat called winey. It was very cute, sleeping by the fireplace. Supposedly during the summer she sleeps on the counter.
On our drive to Fairview at Paarl, we did a bit of a game drive through a farm. We saw springboks, ostrich, eloyns, and zebras. Fyi, if a male ostrich looks like it is wearing red stockings, it is in heat.
Fairview wine and cheese tasting:
We had a selection of cheese to taste and it was much needed since we've been drinking on an empty stomach. Our favorite cheeses were garlic herbal goat cheese, camembert, tower bleu...delicious.
7 - 12:50am - sauvingnon blanc (R42).
8 - 1:05pm - Weisser Riesling (R45). Fresh, fragrant style from cool darling vineyard. Not my favorite.
9 - 1:15pm - Spice Route Pinotage, Fairview Pinotage Viognier (pinotage with white), Fairview Pinotage, Caldera....
We were supposed to only have 5 wine tasting...but we must of tried 10...and I totally lost track by now.
Fairview also produces the Goats do Roam range of wines. We learned about the story behind these wines. Apparently the French tried to sue Fairview as Goats do Roam is a play on words to sound like Cotes de Rhone, the wine from the Rhone valley in France. However true enough there are goats that roam at Fairview (we saw them ourselves) so the case got thrown out of court. Rather cheekily they now have a whole range of wines named to sound like French counterparts, including Bored Doe (Bordeaux).
Lunch at Essence gave us a break and time to recover since they served us really bad wine. Over lunch we had a very stimulating conversation with our new buddies hilary and aaron from boston. We spoke about serious issues like apartheid, arron's bro marrying a black woman in south africa, and different views on religion. It was a very emotional conversation, but that could be an effect of the mass consumption of wine.
Dieu donne wine tasting @ 3pm:
3:05pm - Right when we took our first sip of the methode cap classique/maingard brut (R75), it started to hail and thunder storm. Pretty crazy given we are in south africa. We were told this usually doesn't happen.
We each had 5 wine tasting...mind you a tasting is like 3-4 sips here...and the wine was surely getting to us. Steph even began her early nap on the ride to Boschendal.
Boschendal wine tasting @ 4pm:
Its the 2nd oldest winery in south africa.
We also had 5 half glass wine tasting here. Either I am too drunk to taste now, or who knows, I didn't like any of it.
As we were doing our tasting, we chatted with some aussies that spoke about shark cage diving, which steph kept on saying snake cage diving, and how they lure the sharks by putting fish oil all around the cages. One of the girls also explained to us what abalone looks like and how they are harvested. I've eaten them before but didn't know what they really looked like. She said they harvest them is australia, but always exported overseas.
As we exited the winery, our guide thought it would be funny to give us an "all around view" which consist of him driving in circles at the parking lot. Yea - not sure how safe we were with him. However, I would say I enjoyed his choice of music which included dance music to get the ride pumping and one of my favorite songs - young folks.
After the wine tour we got dropped off at our hostel where the party continued. We met our dutch friend Martijn who works as a tour leader for overland trips through Africa. He study tourism in Netherlands and just finished his second overland trip. He goes all over africa. Sounds like a pretty adventurous job.
I teamed up with Martijn in a game of pool against Alan and Steph. Alan has improved through the years of losing numerous games to erik and paul...so when I came back we already lost.
For dinner we headed to our reservation at Man'oushe, which was a lively Lebanese place. They messed up our reservation, but jean the chef made sure we got a seated right away. We ordered various different dishes which were served with freshly baked flat breads for dipping. We ended up ordering far too much food but it was all delicious. We had some more wine as well but it was pretty crap after all the good wines we had sampled during the day. After a long day of drinking we all decided to call it quits around 10pm and headed back to our hostel for some sleep. By that time steph and alan started to have the hangover effect from drinking in the afternoon.
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