In Vino Veritas

Saturday (Feb 4)

We woke up and headed to down to the lobby around 8am to meet our guide for the duration of our stay in Cape Town, Angie. Angie was....an interesting guide. My overall impression of her was that she was a nice person but a bad guide -- frazzled, talked too much, did not allow natural discussion or questions, and repeated herself constantly.

Angie arrives around 8:10 and starts talking a mile a minute about our plans for the day -- touring the winelands. She tells us how we'll be heading to Paarl first to visit the Afrikaans Taal Monument since it's a bit too early to start drinking wine. She then asks us which wineries we want to visit for the day and proceeds to schedule those appointments while we are at the Taal Monument (a bit last minute). She also repeated about 5 times how she wants us to visit Fairview Winery first that way we can get some cheese with our wine "to line our stomachs." However, Fairview could not give us an appointment until 11:3o, so we headed to Avondale Winery in Paarl first.

We were given the option to have our tasting outside on the patio overlooking the garden and the wine estate. It was beautiful. We tasted the Armilla (sparkling wine), Anima (chenin blanc), Cyclus (white blend), Camissa (Rose), Samsara (Syrah), La Luna (Cab/Merlot blend). My favorite was La Luna and Dad and Ben really liked the Camissa. The Camissa smelled absolutely wonderful (like a muscado) but the taste was more like a sauvignon blanc.

We then headed over to Fairview Winery in Paarl where they offer cheese pairings with the wine. They also have a goat tower in the front garden and funny shirts displayed in the main area like "Goat do Roam" as a play on "Cotes-du-Rhone" the wine region in France. I really enjoyed the Shiraz wines we tasted here.

After finishing up at Fairview, it was time for lunch, so we headed to Franschhoek to eat at La Petite Ferme. Here we enjoyed some traditional South African food (lamb and boboti), and I also tried to the winery's merlot. The restaurant had a gorgeous view overlooking the vineyards in the valley.

By the time lunch was finished, it was time to head to Stellenbosch to meet Uncle Fanie and Aunt Lisel for tea at Caledon Villa, a house built by my great-great-grandfather and where the current Krige historian, Johan Krige, lives. When I met Johan, it struck me how he resembled my Oupa Marius. I could immediately tell he was a Krige, and I immediately felt at home. Johan gaves us a wonderful tour of the guest house and an informative history of the Krige clan. There are different Krige branches, and I am part of the Caledon Kriges who settled in Stellenbosch. It was so nice to hear about my family history and officially become part of the Krige -Bond.