Stellenbosch - the wine country

Saturday, February 16th

Stellenbosch Area

South Africa

Today was a very full day. My driver, Wayne, picked me up at 8:00 and we headed east out of Cape Town.

Wayne is a very interesting person with a background almost as varied as mine, including some time with Outward Bound in various countries and now back to Cape Town with the “Mountain” tour service. The company name is actually in a South African language, but it translates to Mountain, because that’s the name of the couple (who live in the states) who own it. One more unabashed plug for Micky my travel agent (travelplanningforyou.com.)

Traveling with Wayne was non-stop information about everything. I’ve select about 150 pictures out of the almost 1,000 I took. They pretty much follow our day. This wasn’t just “snap-something-and-go tourist photography.” I really took in everything before shooting a picture. That tells you how full the day was. Many of the photos are from the car and are landscapes. This country is incredibly beautiful! I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of the mountains, valleys, vineyards, architecture...etc. etc. etc.

Our day started with the Language Monument. It’s a tribute to the melding of languages that has created the current state of things in South Africa with Afrikaner as the principal language. The architecture is (inset your own superlative...I almost used ‘incredibly’ which seems to be my word for the day) thought out and every part of it has significance. I’m going to give you the Travel Advisor link rather than try to explain it to you. None of the sites I looked at really dissect the monument’s architecture, but if I go into detail on everything I experienced today this blog would be a not-very-short novel. https://www.tripadvisor.co.za/Attraction_Review-g312668-d949675-Reviews-Afrikaans_Language_Monument-Paarl_Western_Cape.html. If you’re really interested just Google ‘The language monument.’

From there we drove a short distance to the first winery, Anura Vineyards. The name means “Frog.” This was my first of three wineries for the day. I don’t even really drink wine, but South African wines are beginning to be imported into the States and are internationally acclaimed. At Anura I sampled three white wines, one rose, and one red. None of them were to my taste really, which I have found to be true of all the wines I tasted. (Forgot to tell you Cape Grace Hotel had a wine tasting the first night I got to Cape Town.) I’m pretty much a sweeter Riesling drinker and South African wines tend to be much sharper and dryer. After the tasting we took a tour of their fermenting production. It was fascinating. Every tank had a sheet with precise readings, mandated by law, taken almost every hour. When a wine is ready to be bottled they take it to the back door and load it into a mobile bottling truck. Yes, a mobile bottling truck! Seems like none of the wineries have their own bottling facilities except the ‘giants.’

Next stop was a drive through the city of Stellenbosch, the second oldest (or third, depending on which authority you believe) city after Cape Town (which is known as “the Mother City.”) Stellenbosch (Stel’s Bush) as the founder named it after himself in the 1600’s, is a university town with a growing technology park. The University itself has an interesting history, which I won’t try to go into (again, length) but it teaches, by law, in Afrikaner, the language memorialized by the Monument, the predominant language in the southern part of the country. (There are more than 17 languages, plus each has dialects.) The town is a mixture of all the architecture through the ages, which gives an aficionado a trace of the entire history of the city. The pictures I took are of buildings from the predominant eras. I had an opportunity to tour several of these, which have been turned into museums with period furniture, but because I know there would be much more walking at the end of the day I chose not to get out.

Not only is the architecture of the Stellenbosch region extraordinary, so is the geology. We next went through the Stellenbosch Valley to the vineyard where we were scheduled to have lunch. I have seen valleys and I have seen mountains, but none like these. The valley was nestled in between two tall mountains with pronounced strata, and where I would have presumed a river cut through there was none. Not being a geologist I haven’t a clue, but it seems they were part of a seismic upthrust.

Lunch was supposed to be at Delaire Graff Winery, but Wayne had told me that since it was Saturday we were wait-listed and might have to go to another restaurant and winery across the road. But we arrived early and he sweet-talked the hostess into seating us. Graff is a diamond and jewelry merchant who has made a fortune and bought the Delaire vineyard and has invested millions in it. The artwork alone is worth millions.

Kudos to my pulmonologist, whose family has traveled to South Africa several times. She suggested both the Cape Grace Hotel, and the Delaire Graff restaurant. She was right on target! Both are 5 stars in my opinion. I don’t know if it really shows in my photos, but the backdrop of the valley was matched only by the excellence of the duck.

The picture of the hands, at the top of this blog, is at the entrance. I had taken a picture of it and was contemplating it, when we went to lunch. As we came out, Wayne told me the story.

During apartheid anyone who was not white had to carry identification papers, and any government official could stop you at any time and demand to see your papers. If yours were not in order, or even if they were, the authorities had the power to arrest you and, at best, deport you back to your neighborhood. At worst you could be imprisoned. Since their first thought was that you were a terrorist, it could go very badly. The art work depicted the rebellion when Nelson Mandella was released from prison. The hands are throwing their passes into the fire. I can only imagine the horror of living through those times.

After lunch we headed out through the vineyards again to have my next wine tasting. Since Stellenbosch is noted for its red wines, Wayne had to look in his Platter’s Wine Guide, a book listing all the wineries and estates in South Africa. He found one, Thelma, just down the road. I burst out laughing when I say the statue of the rhino at their entrance. More about that when I cover the retreat.

Our tasting (or I should say, my tasting...Wayne was zero tolerance since he was a tour guide) was on the open lawn under some beautiful oak trees. (Stellenbosch is also known as ‘Oak Valley’ because of all the oak trees.) Again I took pictures of the various wines. All were excellent, but, again, far too sharp for my taste. It was fun getting to try them though, and to hear the young woman who was the vintner give us the history of each wine.

On the road again, we headed to Franschhoek (French Corner) also known as the ‘City of Oaks.’ It was fascinating to learn the the Huguenots populated the valley at the same time Andrea’s ancestors were settling Charleston. Her great-(however many greats back)grandfather found the Huguenot Church in Charleston which is still active today. The monument with arches and three columns is dedicated to the settlers.

The town itself is quaint. Just like Stellenbosch (of which it is a part of the Municipality,) Franschhoek is a mixture of old and new, but with many more of the old buildings preserved. When we arrived there was a market being held on the church grounds, so we went across, but it was so late they were already tearing down their stalls for the afternoon. However, a few were still open at the corner where we entered. One was a lady who made frames of jewelry wire, covered them with colored beads strung on the wire, and fashioned them into animals. I bought a small rhino as my token souvenir of the trip. There was a table with some beautiful pottery with native patterns, but they were too large for me to pack in my already overstuffed suitcases so I passed.

The trip back to Cape Town was uneventful and I even got to catch a short nap on the way. Since we still had an hour or so left in the day’s tour time, Wayne suggest he give me a tour of downtown Cape Town. I won’t begin to try to give you a blow-by-blow of all we saw. You’ll just have to guess at the pictures. I do just want to mention the pictures with the bright colored houses on the steep streets.

They are homes to the Cape Malay, who were brought to the Cape as slaves, political refugees, etc. from the East. They primarily spoke Malay, hence the name. They also brought Islam to Cape Town, but the appears to be no milatancy.

Tomorrow I meet the rest of the team and the retreatants, and travel to our conference center, Waterval, about an hour and a half drive across the Stellenbosch Mountains.

Pictures: the day's travel in sequence