Gourmet Wine Tours of South Africa

A Day Of Wine And Food

Cape Town, South Africa 

December 7, 2013

By Sean Overpeck (CFE)

**A full article and index glossary of restaurants, wines, recipes and travel for 

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As a lover of food and wine, a trip to South Africa was something that I always wanted to do. Mainly the wine of course. In 2010, I went on a wine and food tour of France, visiting Bordeaux, Côtes du Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and Bourgogne. After that experience, I made up dream trips to all the countries in the world that had major wine regions, such as Stellenbosch in South Africa. I met and had many conversations with a buddy of mine at a camp in Kunduz, Afghanistan where I worked as Chef of the camp, and he was head of security, a South African. After several conversations about how I had interest in the wine and cuisine, my buddy Anton convinced me to go saying that the food and wine were very good, but the country of South Africa would be even better. Therefore, I began making the plans. When in the United States I had stopped into a used thrift store and was thumbing through the books and ran into a 2007 edition of Frommer’s South Africa. For $1.00, I bought the huge book, which had everything about South Africa in it and in detail.  When I read into the fifth chapter on the wines of South Africa, Stephen Flesch owner of Gourmet Wine Tours of South Africa was prominently listed as one of the main and better tour operators in the wine regions. Therefore, I sent him an email listed in the book, which was now nearly six years old, hoping it was still active, and I got a response. The details were worked out, and I hired Stephen for my South African wine adventure.

                                               

From the home page:

Explore the scenically stunning wine-lands of the Western Cape and experience the best of South African wine and food in the amazing variety of superb restaurants - a region which is an epicurean’s dream. Tours are offered for individuals or small groups covering the principal wine areas and estates of Constantia; Durbanville; Elgin; Franschhoek; Paarl; Somerset West; Stellenbosch; Walker Bay (Hermanus) and Wellington, combined with meals in selected leading restaurants. Arranged (pre-planned) tours are available or they can be tailored to your individual requirements. Scenic tours of the Cape Peninsula (including one or two wineries) are also offered. I am a registered tour guide and a member of the Cape Tourist Guides Association. The former Chairman of the Wine Tasters Guild of South Africa, I have a wide and intimate knowledge of the wines of the area, accumulated over forty years of wine tasting. I also know personally many of the winemakers and proprietors of the most important wineries. Currently, I am the Leader of the Cape Town Slow Food Convivium.

Main review:

Stephen Flesch owner of Gourmet wine Tours can arrange any type of tour you wish, as you can see from the excerpt from above. My interest was Stellenbosch and Franschhoek Wineries, with a tour of the Franschhoek area. We settled on the details of the day where we would visit six wineries, have lunch at Terroir, a tour of downtown Franschhoek, and up to the top of the Franschhoek Pass to view the entire valley, ending with dinner at The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français. I had visited the Constantia wine region a few days before, doing wine tastings at locations such as Eagles Nest Winery, where I tasted the best Shiraz I had ever had, Constantia Glen Winery, with wonderful views, Steenberg Vineyards, and  Constantia Uitsig, with dinner at Constantia Uitsig La Colombe.

Stephen picked me up from the condominium I was leasing from my friend who convinced me to visit South Africa in West Beach, Cape Town. As we began our drive going to Stellenbosch, leaving Cape Town we passed by the Cape Town Film Studios, where I could see three older ships in the distance sitting on a small pond of water. This is where the show Black Sails on Starz is filmed. Black sails now about to enter its second season is a story prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. The drive from my condominium on West beach to our first winery visit was a good hour drive, so Stephen helped the time go by, and talked about the history wine in South Africa, and South Africa itself. Stellenbosch was named after Governor Simon van der Stel (1639 - 1712), and the word Bosch in Afrikaans means trees. Also as part of the conversation, Stephen mentioned that South Africa has 23 wine regions, with over 600 wineries, with 150 being in Stellenbosch alone. 

We arrived at the first winery on the list going up the long driveway with vineyards on both sides leading up to the main house and tasting room of Meerlust Wine Estate where during the tasting, they had an outstanding Meritage Blend called the  Rubicon given a 92 by Robert Parker. The palate is full bodied, structured but packed with fresh dark fruit and rounded, linear tannins with an aging potential of 15 - 20 years.

The next vineyard called Ken Forrester Wines, which was only a few minutes from the Meerlust Estate, where they had a nice patio area to sit down and get out of the hot sun. Stephen could tell that I really didn’t enjoy the white wine selections that they offered, but this is when Stephen found out that my favorite style of wines in this world are Rhône or  Rhône style blends, to which Ken Forrester did have The Three Halves and The FMC.

The third vineyard on the travels through Stellenbosch was one of my favorites of the entire day called De Trafford Wines, which also featured their sister winery Sijnn Wines. This vineyard had one of the best Merlots that I had ever consumed that reminded me of Emmolo Wine company, in Napa California. Also at De Trafford, I was shown and learned how to make Straw Wine, which is a process of drying grapes in the open sun on beds of straw, which is only done in South Africa by a handful of vineyards, De Trafford being one of them.

Straw Wine

The fourth stop on our tour was a beautiful estate that besides the wine vineyards also had a hotel, restaurant, golf course, and a gated neighborhood of upper-middle-class homes. The Estate was called Kleine Zalze, where is where we also had lunch at their restaurant Terroir. The vineyard had a nice Chenin Blanc, as well as a Shiraz, and the lunch was a good break. 

 

 

The fifth vineyard was called La Motte, which was a good 45-minute drive from Terroir and Kleine Zalze as we had to travel down a very scenic highway into the outskirts of the Franschhoek Valley. Franschhoek was originally a town settled by French Huguenots, escaping religious persecution from Europe and the Cape Colony, and the town’s focus is on education and theology with many schools and university’s as well as churches. At the center of the town was a large religious memorial dedicated to the Huguenots.  La Motte was one of the oldest properties in Franschhoek and focused on the life of a South African artist (Jacob Hendrik Pierneef 1886 – 1957). With the tasting room and restaurants, you could tell a lot of money was put into the property. They had a wonderful Chardonnay. 

The sixth and final tasting of the day was at the Cape Chamonix Winery, another wonderful property that had a fantastic Troika (meaning: Russian sleigh pulled by three horses), blended with Cabernet Franc 51%, Cabernet Sauvignon 40%, and Merlot 9%.

After that final tasting, we drove up to the Franschhoek Pass where I saw some beautiful views that were unlike any I had ever seen before, and it made me want to start looking for property to purchase. It was truly a magnificent sight to see.

 

 

As we drove back down near the town, we stopped at the Mont Rochelle Hotel for tea on the terrace. The property also had a mountain vineyard, but we did not do a tasting, just tea. Essentially we were killing time, and preparing for the main event of the day where Stephen joined me for dinner at the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français, Rated #53 in the top 100 restaurants in the world by San Pellegrino for 2013. All I could say when the meal ended was wow.

 

 

 

Stephen drove me back to West Beach, collected all the wine that I had purchased from the tastings, and prepared them to be sent by air freight back to the United States for me, which would save me a fortune from shipping it, or ordering it from a distributor in the states at their outrageous prices. When I return to South Africa, I will use Stephen again. It was a wonderful and informative tour and made it one of the best days of the trip.

Tour Prices 

(excludes, alcohol, taxes & 20% gratuity’s)

$£€¥ -                Under 50.00 (inexpensive)

$£€¥ x 2 -          51.00- 99.00 (moderate)

$£€¥ x 3 -          Over 100.00 (pricey)

$£€¥ x 4 -          Over 200.00 (expensive)

$£€¥ x 5 -          Over 400.00 (very expensive)

Currency:	Price
South African Rand (ZAR)	R 1,900.00
United States Dollar (USD)	$$$
Great Britain Pound Sterling (GBP)	£££
Canadian Dollar (CAN)	$$$
Chinese Yuan (CNY)	¥¥¥¥¥
European Union (EUR)	€€€

All rates include transport in an air-conditioned Mercedes B180 and tasting and admission fees, where applicable, but exclude the cost of meals and wines consumed which will be charged separately.

Address:         

P.O. Box 31353,

Grassy Park, 7888

11 peninsula Road

Zeekoevlei, 7941

South Africa

           

Cross streets:

Le Grange Road and Misrole Ave

Contact Information:

Website:	Gourmet Wine Tours of SA
Telephone:	021 705 4317
Fax	021 706 0766
Email contact:	Contact Stephen
Serving hours: South African Standard Time (GMT, Zulu, or UTC + 2:00)
Social Media  &  Accolades:	Facebook link
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Who is John Galt?

TTFN

“I like cooking with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food.”