A Tour of Wine Country

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Text by Alex Marashian Photos by Rainer Hosch

A Tour of Wine Country

With winters like this, who needs summer? That’s about the deepest thought going through my head as we set out on a tour of the Cape Winelands. The morning light is golden, the temperature is climbing gently past 20° and this countryside of sweeping valleys and cresting hills, all framed by the jagged, gray mountains of the Cape Fold Belt, is strangely, almost achingly, familiar. 

Locals frequently refer both to the climate of the Western Cape province and to its subtly dramatic terrain as ‘Mediterranean’, but I’ve lived near the Mediterranean and am even more reminded of my own homeland of California. Indeed, if it weren’t for the Cape Dutch-style architecture of the country estates and wineries dotting the hillsides — the uniformity of their thatched roofs, white-washed walls and curvy front gables in marked contrast to mishmash of styles in California — I’d have never guessed I wasn’t back home. (Actually, the fact that Zac, our production associate, is driving on the left side of the road might also have tipped me off.)

The Cape Winelands, which comprise the six distinct wine regions of the Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek Valleys, each region boasting its own wine route, are the largest wine-producing area of South Africa, yielding more than half a billion liters of red, white and rosé each year. And while these wines haven’t quite achieved the reputation of their European or even Californian rivals, it’s certainly not for lack of expertise. The area has been producing wine ever since the late 17th Century, when a wave of Huguenot refugees from France moved in, bringing their French wine-making skills along with them. 

Our tour takes us first through the valley of Franschoek (or “French Corner”) and the quaint, old village of the same name. The area was originally called Olifantshoek, for the elephants that once roamed this valley freely, but as the names of the town and its oldest estates — Provence, Chamonix, La Dauphine and Dieu Donné among them — would suggest, the Huguenots, who first settled here in 1688, quickly claimed this verdant valley for themselves. More recently, it has been claimed by vacationers, tourists and second-homers from Cape Town, attracted no doubt by the magnificent landscape, the well-preserved Cape Dutch architecture and the abundance of fine wine. 

Though Franschoek has no shortage of renowned wineries, most of which offer tastings and cellar tours, it’s a bit too early for us Tour du Monders to go down that path. We know what would happen if we did, and we have lots of ground to cover today. And so we rumble on to Paarl, admiring the countryside, imagining elephant herds lumbering through it, and brushing up on our South African history. By the time we roll into Stellenbosch, we’re well aware that it’s the second oldest European settlement in the country, established in 1679 and named after its founder, Simon von der Stel, the first governor Cape Colony, the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

An important university town, Stellenbosch is a great deal larger than Franschhoek and not quite as charming. It does have plenty of well-preserved Cape Dutch architecture, though. It also has several squatter settlements, a reminder that all is not so quaint and cosy as the white-washed facades of this town of 150,000 might suggest. But what Stellenbosch is best known for is wine — indeed, it’s the hub of Cape Winelands production — and after hours of touring, it’s time for a little tasting.

About ten minutes out of town, on the way to nearby Somerset West, we pull up at Webersburg, a “boutique winery” (as its bills itself) and five-star accommodation. The scenery is typically splendid, and the property’s main structures, a manor house and adjacent jonkershuis (“oldest son’s house”) dating back to 1786, are finely restored. But under the scorching midday sun, the thing we appreciate most is Webersburg’s cool  Sauvignon Blanc. The Winery also has a 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon they seem quite proud of, but we never get around to trying it. The day is just too hot. Like I said, with winters like this, who needs summers?

If the fact that elephants once roamed it is one difference between the Cape’s wine country and that of California, then the fact that Ostriches still roam it is certainly another. While ostriches no longer run wild here (unless one travels north quite a ways), Ostrich farms are quite common in the West Cape province. Ostrich feathers are used for dusters, ostrich hide for quality leather and low-fat ostrich meat for burgers, kebabs, steaks and more. So far on the Tour du Monde, we’ve mingled with elephants, camels and lions (well, we didn’t quite mingle with the lions), so how could we resist a chance to cavort with the world’s largest and fastest (at least on the ground) bird on our way back to Cape Town?

Just 30 or so kilometers out of town, between the hills of wine country and the sea, the Westcoast Ostrich Show Ranch is both a fully functioning ostrich farm, with well over 200 ostriches on hand, and a savvy tourist destination, quite ideal for people like me, who find ostriches both fascinating and hugely funny. Though I’ve often admired them at zoos, this my first chance to get down and dirty with them, and I don’t miss it. 

After spending the better part of an hour waiting and watching as the farm’s kindly owners try to rustle up a pack of 20 fully-grown ostriches to pose for a picture with the new DEDON Nestrest — a project not unlike herding cats — our team gives up. The alternative, suggest the owners, would be to shoot a couple of one-month-olds inside the Nest Rest, and that’s where I come in. 

The babies — already well over a meter tall — are still small enough to be handled, and a pair of farmhands somehow manages to stuff them inside the Nestrest. Unfortunately, one of the babes really doesn’t like it in there and keeps hopping out (sometimes falling flat on it face and playing dead for a couple of moments before ambling off). Somehow, I convince myself that my special feeling for these birds must mean they have a special feeling for me, too. I ask the farmhands if it’s ok to go and join the birds in the Nestrest, and they tell me to give it a try. Sure enough, as I sit down in the entrance of the Nestrest, the troublesome bird stays put (it helps that I’m blocking its exit) and even lets me caress him (or her). 

As we gather around an outdoor table at the Westcoast Ostrich Ranch, I wonder how my colleagues can allow themselves to order up the meat of our new friends, the ostriches — and it’s not just because I’m a vegetarian. It just seems terribly cruel to eat such an entertainingly odd creature. Our photographer, Oliver, who tries the ostrich burger, and our producer, Chris, who orders up the kebabs, seem unswayed by my arguments, however. Ostrich meat is absolutely delicious, they conclude. And apparently, you can’t argue with that.