Franschhoek (pronounced Frans-shook) is the Africaans word for French. This village, in the midst of Stellebrosch wine region, was established by the French in the late 1600’s as they helped the Dutch establish grape growing and wine making, turning this whole area into world class viniculture estates and farms.
Our first stop was at La Motte, owned by one of the richest families in South Africa. We first toured their art museum featuring JH Pierneef then we had a nice tasting of three white and four red wines. The sommelier instructed us to first taste a white then a red.
On our way to the next vineyard we stopped to see the place where Nelson Mandela walked to freedon from prison in Paarl (pronounced Paul) then at the Africaans Language Monument which sits on a high hill and can be seen from a long distance. There are 6 spires that represent the number of people speaking the different languages of South Africa. The short columns represent Dutch, English, French, Portugese amd Malay. The tallest is, of course, Africaans and the next tallest actually represnts the number of native Africans as compared to whites. The African peples are Zulu, Xhosa (kōza) and others.
Fairview Estate was our next stop. Here we tasted wine as paired with different cheses made on their farm. We also tasted our first Pinotage wine. This grape was created at a South African university by blending the Pinot Noir grape with a Cinsault (Hermonage) grape and is found only in SA. Wonderful experiece!
If chocolate is your thing then a stop at Spice Route is a must as we got to taste chocolate from very dark to white. Mouth watering goodness! This place was a destination in itself with several restaurants, wine tasting, beer brewing and tasting, picnic and playgrounds.
Our last winery was a disappointment as we were rushed through the tasting because they wanted to close early and the wine was not very good. Warwick Estates was established in 1984 and had a good reputation but we didn’t care for their wines.
We had a late tapas dinner at the Franschhoek Country Inn restaurant and retired early!
No comments:
Post a Comment