Forgive us, but we figured it was ok to highlight wine instead of food this week. The existence of wine in the Cape Colony is no coincidence. Sailors long at sea often demanded wine in order to herd off scurvy and other fun diseases. Almost immediately upon founding the colony expeditions were went to the ‘frontier’ to find suitable land for agriculture, wine chief amongst the concerns of colonists, even though grapes had already been planted closer to town. The industry here got an added boost at the start of the 19th century when Britain and France were at war. Today pinotage is the king South Africa varietal, a hybrid of pinot noir and cinsault grapes, making it a light and fruity red wine.
The nicest part of the tastings in Stellenbosch was their format. Although we are from professionals, we’ve been to quite a few wine tours now. Generally the format for these things is to show up, stand at the bar while the bartender pours your new taste and tells you about the varital, remain standing while drinking, and quickly downing or dumping the remainder so that the bartender can begin the next taste. Not so in Stellenbosch.
At the first vineyard, we were handed a menu, told to choose our first selection, handed glasses and invited to sit on the patio. When we were ready for our next we got up and made our selection. If we wanted to try each Chardonnay, a second glass was given to us so that we could compare them side by side. Given that the tastes were quite substantial, and we each were allotted 5, we were there for quite awhile which kept us from visiting too many other vineyards. The second winery just sat us down, brought us each three glasses, filled them up, and gave us each a piece of chocolate to go with each wine. Can’t beat that.
Perhaps the reason for the difference is the age of the the South African vineyards (the first were planted around 1650) when compared with everything we’ve ever had in the Americas but I’ve gotta say…. Mendoza, Argentina needs to take note.
Not sure what you mean by your last observation – do you mean that South African varietals are better than malbecs, or that the South African tastings are handled better? I haven’t been to South Africa, but for my tastes malbecs dominate what I have had from South Africa (although there are definitely some good wines!)
Keep enjoying the trip! When do you start migrating northward?
And I always meant to ask – will you be doing the Arab countries?
All the best,
Mark
Hi Mark – Although I think I prefer the Pinotage of South Africa we were only referring to the way the tastings were handled. Mendoza, Argentina was a complete disappointment in that regard.
We have actually already moved northward but the blog is playing a bit of catch-up. We do plan to do some Arab countries but aren’t sure exactly what will workout where on account of our USA passports, etc. We will likely fly over the Sudan toward Egypt/Jordan and after that who knows…
Egypt is very interesting, especially archaeologically. Jordan is also interesting archaeologically. While they are quite different from each other, even though I was happy to get to know both places I don’t have incredible desire to go back to either one, and that is not related to my Israel connection. I have heard that there are parts of Saudi Arabia that are worth seeing; I only know Riyadh and I don’t recommend it. In the Gulf, Oman is supposed to be quite open and nice. Dubai (and by inference – I don’t know them – the other Emirates) is a huge plastic nothing. Bahrein is fairly friendly in a sincere way, but not a lot to see.
I don’t know Syria, Iraq, or Kuwait at all (other than Kuwait airport). I’ve heard from other travelers that Syria is nice, but they won’t let you in if you have any Israeli visas in your passport. Saudi also will not. The others, believe it or not, don’t seem to care much anymore; and Bahrein even (very quietly) announced a year or two ago that they would admit Israeli passports, not just other passports with Israeli visas.
Enjoy!