Wine Country: Stellenbosch & Franshoek

‘Wine Country’ in South Africa is Stellenbosch (mainly) and Franshoek (smaller). They are a mere hour’s drive from Cape Town, so you can come for the day, but we wanted to be able to stay and enjoy ourselves. They are also the food mecca of South Africa, and surrounded by some pretty fantastic mountains. We spent two days eating, tasting wine, and enjoying the surroundings. It was sunny and low 70’s, we had a few bad wines, lots of good wine, and some really standout wines. We’re not much for knickknacks, so came home with quite a few bottles of wine instead. Most of the wineries served outside, had you sit at tables, and would bring the next pour to you (instead of standing at the bar) so we were able to take our time and enjoy the scenery, and also had some very interesting and informative people serving us.

Favorite wines - Ken Forrester

yummy lunch outdoors

the Picanto..

We stayed in an adorable cottage at a working farm called Bo La Motte, and enjoyed cooking breakfasts, drinking coffee, and watching sunsets there. South Africa was by no means one of our cheapest trips – it’s nothing like expensive Europe, but also a long shot from dirt cheap South America or SE Asia as well.  Stellenbosch & Franshoek were the perfect embodiment of this though – amazing gourmet food and service (we had one dinner that was similar in service and food to Canlis) for the price of your average dinner out here in Seattle.  We had spent much of the trip cooking food for ourselves and eating over a campfire so we felt entitled to ‘splurge’ a bit and ate nice meals every chance we got for three days.

view from the cottage

view the other way

one of the wineries also had a car museum...

And with that, we conclude our journey. We went back to Cape Town for another day, but you already read about that. We flew home via Johannesburg, Lagos (Nigeria), and Houston. I won’t tell the whole story, but seriously, do whatever you can to avoid a layover in Nigeria. It took us 3.5 hours to get from one hallway to the next and we spent a portion of that time with our passports out of our sight. And that’s normal.

Anyways….we thoroughly enjoyed our trip. The first two weeks involved more driving than was ideal, but it was also the only practical way to see all the things we wanted to see. We had a ton of unique, special experiences, and a good mix of adventure and relaxation. We stayed away from the big cities except Cape Town, but never felt unsafe except perhaps in Lesotho. It was ‘winter’ but in the end I think it was a really good choice for time of year to go. It wasn’t the ‘easiest’ trip ever as far as language/cultural differences, but certainly not anywhere near the most difficult either. Seeing the big 5, hiking the coast & surfing, scuba diving, and climbing Lions Head are some of the things that will stick out most clearly in our memories.  As always, we loved our travel buddies Ashley & Steven (and you can read Ashley's food focused version of the events here).