Location:
South Africa

Wine & Cuisine

By Peter Anderson

From time immemorial the rich and poor have regarded wine as the perfect accompaniment to good food and convivial company. The early Dutch settlers to South Africa especially at the Cape Province lost little time in transplanting this gracious component of European culture to their adopted land. The Huguenots contributed more sophisticated skills to the industry and before long good quality wines were being produced at the Cape. The Cape Winelands are characterized by magnificent scenery, with vineyards stretching as far as the eye can see, dotted with gracious Cape Dutch homesteads with dramatic mountain scenery as the backdrop. Within an easy one-hour’s drive from Cape Town most of the vineyards in the Stellenbosch, Paarl, Somerset West, Franschoek and Montagu districts can be reached by car. They provide the perfect opportunity for wine lovers to sample and buy excellent vintage wine, sherry, brandy and port. Most wine cellars have conducted tours through their premises.

In addition to wine tasting and guided tours many estates provide meals. Cuisine is of an extremely high standard, ranging from traditional ‘boerekos’ and spicy Malay dishes to cheese lunches and contemporary fare. There are some superb al fresco meals served under spreading oaks, camphor trees and wine pergolas. Excellent restaurants are also found in charmingly restored old wine-houses where, in the early days, simple working folk enjoyed their wine. Like the homesteads, thatched roofs, gables, thick white walls, yellowwood floors and beams characterize the wine-houses. Yellowwood and stinkwood furniture, antique china, Cape copper, silver and glassware adorn the interiors.

Chenin blanc is the most widely planted grape variety in the Cape. This versatile variety produces good natural wines covering the whole spectrum from sweet to dry, sherry, sparkling wines and is also used for distilling brandy and spirits. The most widely planted red variety is the Cinsaut, previously known as Hermitage. It is used in a blend with the choicest Cabernets. It is often used for rosé, port and jerepigo wines.

Many people are not aware that South Africa produces excellent brandy and has won the top awards at the annual International Wine and Spirit Competitions. The only two regions in the world that distill their brandy using copper pot-stills are the Cognac region in France and South Africa. This distilling process is a long and expensive process compared to the more common column distilling where kettles are used. Special vats are used for aging brandy; they must not contain more than 340 litres and must be made of approved French oak.

There are numerous wine routes that can be taken in the Cape Province. The Cape Tourist Association, Captour, puts out some excellent brochures on the various wine routes and each area has its own information centre that abounds with literature on that particular area.

The Franschoek Wine Route has fifteen producers with mainly French names is situated in the valley originally known as Le Quartier Français. This area was home to some 200 Huguenots who fled persecution in France in the 1680’s. Franschoek has a population of only about 3,000, but has one of the best choices of restaurants in all of South Africa. There are always at least two of Franschoek’s restaurants in the top ten restaurants in South Africa. Two charming Guest Houses, Le Ballon Rouge and Le Quartier Français are situated close together and they complement each other. The Le Ballon Rouge is a very homely friendly place while Le Quartier Français, is just as friendly, is more up-market. Le Ballon Rouge has seven en-suite bedrooms in a beautifully restored Victorian village homestead and serves a superb breakfast. Le Quartier Français with its fireplaces for the winter, fans for the summer and deep down duvets with Egyptian cotton bed linen it is a must for the discerning traveller.

The Paarl Wine Route has 17 members producing every variety of wine, sherry, port, sparkling wine, brandy and Kosher wines. A premier event on the Wine Route calendar is the Nouveau Festival, which takes place on Paarl Mountain in April every year. It is the only one of its kind in the country.

The Ko-operatieve Wijnbouwers Vereniging van Zuid-Afrika Beperkt, known as KWV, wine cellar complex is the largest in the world, covering 22 hectares. More than 100 different natural wines, as well as an impressive range of brandy and fortified wines are produced here for the world market. The tour begins with an audiovisual presentation, followed by a visit to, among others, the famous Cathedral Cellar with its barrel-vaulted roof and huge carved red wine vats depicting highlights from the Cape’s winemaking history. The five largest vats in the world are under one roof. If you drank one bottle every day out of one of these vats it would take 750 years to empty the vat. The visitors get a glimpse of the intricacies of fortified wine production, which incorporates 30,000 oak vats.

While in Paarl a visit to the Grande Roche hotel is a must. The history of this hotel goes back to 1717, when it was a farm known as Nieuw Plantage. This luxury estate hotel is one of the few hotels in South Africa that is five star with silver service. This classification is awarded to establishments offering above standards of service, hospitality and quality in addition to the star grading. The Bosman restaurant has been awarded South Africa’s top deluxe restaurant. The church and the surroundings make an ideal wedding setting even though the capacity of the church is only 12 persons.

The other Wine Routes are the Swartland wine route, which covers the area from Eendekuil in the north down through Porterville, Moorreesburg, Riebeek-Wes and Malmesbury. The Tulbagh, Wellington, Worcester and Stellenbosch are other wine routes worth visiting.

Two superb restaurants are the Lady Phillips Tea Garden situated on the Vergelegen Estate in Somerset West and Mimosa Lodge at Montagu.

The choice of food in the Cape is varied, with local Cape dishes being influenced by the Dutch, Malay and Indonesian cuisines or to the more western style with French and English influence to the Mediterranean flavours of the Italians, Greek and Portuguese. Some of the local dishes worth trying are Waterblommetjie Bredie (lamb stew with water hyacinth flowers and white wine), Bobotie (curried mince topped with a beaten egg and baked to form a crust and Springbok Pie with stewed peaches. With Cape Town surrounded by the sea, seafood is plentiful with barbecued crayfish, all the snoek (barracuda-like fish) specialties, mussels and perlemoen (abalone) being some of the specialties.

The food, wine, hospitality and ambience of the Cape is nothing short of ‘par excellence’.