Stellenbosch

Sunday, Stellenbosch South Africa

We are at peace!  We have not felt this tranquil, energized or happy as we have for the past three days here in the middle of the wine country of South Africa.  We booked into a wine farm, what they call wineries here, for four days to break up our time in Cape Town. Our hotel is on the Spier Wine Farm and has 135 rooms on a 1200 acre estate that is one of the most picturesque places we have ever seen. It, like Cape Town 40 Km to the west, is surrounded by tall craggy mountains on three sides, with vineyards climbing the mountains like ivy on a tree. Out room is just a simple but elegant expression of the subdued luxury that exudes from every pore of this facility.  It has a gas fireplace (we haven't needed it) - and for that matter we haven't needed the AC either because we have fabulous cross-ventilation.

This farm began in 1692 and has been in continuous operation since then, with the same family owning it for the past hundred or so years. It is a Green facility and as such the focus is on sustainability which normally doesn't float my boat, but here you can see what can really happens if everyone does what should be done. All of the water used in the hotel is completely recycled, processed and used to irrigate all the gardens and grounds. All the food waste is processed to provide food for the goats, chickens, boars, horses, and cows as well as composting for the gardens. All the lighting fixtures - artsy overheads - are made from old plastic milk containers. I mention all of this just to point out the level of detail that goes into the thinking behind this hotel. 

The grounds are filled with native flowers, plants and trees, most of which are flowering now since it is late spring. There is a river that flows through the center of the estate and it ranges from raging near the hills to mellow and meandering as the terrain levels out and widens. Cindy has been beside herself with joy since she has finally been able to run outside, having been condemned to the torture chambers in the hotels in Doha and Cape Town. She comes home from long runs with a grin on her face which reflects her thrill at running through fields filled with wild flowers and tall fragrant trees. Yesterday we had our first rain in the morning but it didn't stop her from running or me from a long walk; in fact it was so refreshing that we hoped it would last all day, but by noon it was bright and sunny allowing us to walk the grounds and take a lot of photos.

The food and wine here are fantastic. The two major restaurants are farm to table, using ingredients from the estate to create lots of interesting combinations of creative and sustainable dishes.  The wines are very interesting and varied, with lots of variety. The whites are generally too alcoholic for my taste with most of them ranging from 13 to 14.5 percent. They tell me that the weather here has been getting hotter over the past decade and thus the wines have been getting more alcoholic.  They do have a lovely Sav Blanc that is about 12.5 and thus at the top of my range and the new 2016 is very drinkable.  What is fantastic are the sparkling wines, which are only about 12%. One is a very marvelous Champagne-like blend and the other a pink sparkler that is about 11.5% and offers a refreshing change of pace. The prices here are marvelous, even though they have us over a wine barrel in that you can't go anywhere else. Most of the wines are about $2.00 per generous glass and the sparklers are only about $2.25. The per bottle prices are equally amazing with a bottle of of the Sav Blanc costing only $5 per bottle!! Needless to say, we have not gone too long being thirsty.

Today we inquired as to how we might get into Stellenbosch to walk around the town. At first the tour director told us it would be 200 Rand, about $15 dollars, to take a car the 12 km to town. That sounded like a rip-off to us so we consulted Uber and got there and back for less than half, including a tip. The drivers were just delightful and like everyone else we have met, proud of their country and their city. Stellenbosch is lovely and larger than we thought with lots of old colonial Dutch buildings and a very grand University, the oldest in South Africa.  It is a center for the wine industry and as such money has been spent to make it very attractive and livable. We wandered for a few hours and stopped for a light lunch and a glass of a different type of sparkling wine. We ended with an espresso at another venue and were surprised and delighted that the coffee was served with homemade truffles, which were rich and tasty. The coffee in South Africa is fantastic, as good as what we would expect in Italy, and every place we have been seems to know how to make the very best espresso and other espresso drinks. Again the prices here are remarkable, due in part to the dollar being so strong, and espressos cost only a tad more than a dollar.