Wine Tours
Today was another day of wine tasting, however, this time we had a driver (Kim) who we booked through Rhino Africa. She was a fantastic tour guide. We had 3 wineries on our list, but throughout the day we changed it up and ended up at 4 wineries. All of today’s wineries were more formal than yesterday’s.
First stop was Kanonkop where they served a Rose, a young vine Pinotage, the Kadette (which is a blend of 50% Pinotage and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon), a more mature vine (oldest 59 years) Pinotage, a Cabernet Sauvignon and the Paul Sauer (70% Cab Sauvignon 15% Cab Franc and 15% Merlot. While our server was very friendly we were not as impressed with the wines, however, the facility was nice.
The second winery was Rust En Vrede. Here we tasted a Merlot, a Shiraz, Cab Sauvignon, and their Estate blend. We liked this winery much better and came home with a Cab Sauvignon and an Estate blend. Next we went to deTrafford. This was one of the wineries we were thinking of going to tomorrow, but Kim recommended them so we had her take us up there. It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but very glad we made the trip. deTrafford is a small family winery. We tasted 4 wines, a Merlot, Syrah, an older (2004) vintage Estate Bordeaux blend and a sweet wine called Straw Wine which is made from Chenin Blanc produced similar to Amarone style. All the wines were very tasty and we came home with the Cab Sauv, Estate blend and a Straw wine.
By now it was 1:30 pm and time to go for lunch. Earlier Kim suggested Bread and Wine Vineyard restaurant which is part of the Moreson Winery. They are a farm to table restaurant and everything we ate, which was all fantastic, was grown on the farm. We also had our first biltong here. It was all brilliant!
After lunch it was on to the last winery, La Motte, which was right across the street. The setting was very interesting. Instead of tasting at a wine bar they had you sit in various settings around the room. We were on leather couches surrounding a big coffee type table. On our table were silver platters where two wines were served at a time. We tasted 8 wines. Two Sauvignon Blanc’s, a Chardonnay and Merlot – Cab Franc blend blend, a Cab Sauvignon another Bordeaux blend then finished with a Shiraz – Viognier blend that was superb and a GSM blend. Troy declared the Shiraz – Viognier co-fermented wine as the best of the day.