Let me preface this article with the fact that I actually took the world of wines course at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) as an elective and it founded a deep appreciation for wine and its process of creation. Since that fateful time as a broke college student I have had the opportunity to expand my wine pallet and do a bit of wine tastings. While working at Oceaneering, we had a subcontractor located in Lodi, CA. Lodi is probably the top Zinfindel producing region in the world and has been an established growing region longer than Napa Valley. I was sent out to Lodi on a few occasions to work. When the work day was done, I was able to explore and do some wine tasting. On one occasion, Kara came out with me and on the weekend we drove west, stopping at a winery in each valley, until we hit the Pacific Ocean. We managed to visit wineries in both Napa and Sonoma valleys, and were quite impressed with their views and wines.

When planning our South African tour, we chose to spend some time in the Cape wine region. We did this for 3 reasons. We really liked wine, we wanted to have a relaxed start to this trip (we know it is going to be less than luxurious at times), and the wine in South Africa is quite inexpensive compared to US prices.

Bubbly Tasting at J.C. LeRoux

We rented this tiny tiny little 1.0 liter Hyundai for < 20$/day and drove it to Stellenbosch, Western Cape. We settle in with our Airbnb hosts and are welcomed with tons of good information about the area vineyards and restaurants. We spent most of the first day at a cafe excited that we had internet again and catching up on posts/photos/etc for all you readers out there, then it was on to wine tasting!!! We stopped at J.C. LeRoux who produced just ‘bubbly’ since it was not made in France they could not call it Champagne. It was excellent!

Wine Tasting at Mont Rochelle

We also booked the Franschhoek Wine Tram and took the blue tour. We stopped at some amazing wineries that were right at the base of the mountains. The only way to describe it would be to put Napa Valley at the base of the Rocky Mountains (no snow though). We did this mid week and there were almost no other people. We spent an hour by ourselves at Sir Richard Branson’s Wine Estate Mont Rochelle.

Holden Manz Winery

From here we moved on to several more excellent wineries before we couldn’t take any more fun. Our favorite wine of the day was at La Coranne, they had a Savignon blanc that was amazing at only 55 Rand/bottle. I commonly find that I enjoy more warm climate white wines (e.g. Spanish Whites, Lodi Van Ruiten Pinot Grigio, etc). They just seem to be full of flavor while still refreshing. Franschhoek was mostly known for red wine varieties, but we left with 2 bottles of white. We hung out a while in the town to let the wine wear off and ordered an Ostrich steak for dinner at Rueben’s in Franschhoek. It was a beautiful day spent with great company, exquisite views, and delicious wine.