Franschhoek Wine Tour
Monday April 13, 2015 (Africa, South Africa)
Today was our chance to kick back, enjoy the scenery, and drink obscene amounts of wine! Wine touuurrr!
We drove in to Franschhoek yesterday afternoon. It’s one of three towns that comprise one of the main winemaking regions of South Africa, the other two being Stellenbosch and Paarl. The town is one of the oldest in South Africa, and since the 90s has become one of the most desirable areas in the country to live. The name itself comes from the Dutch for “French Corner”, since the area was settled by French Huguenots in 1688. They certainly brought their winemaking traditions with them!
The recommended approach to visiting the wineries here seems to be to take the Franschhoek Wine Tram, which in actual fact is a combination of a tram, tractors pulling wagons, minibuses… it’s a bit of a smorgasbord really.
Our path took us to five wineries: Rickety Bridge, Le Grande Provence, La Maison, Eikenhof, and Dieu Donne. The day was full of sunny skies, warm breezes, endless vineyards, and a correspondingly endless number of wine samplings. Neither Sandra nor myself are huge into wine, but who would turn down a flight of five wines for a dollar? Not I.
We’re unsure what the future holds for tomorrow, but we continue to head in the direction of shark alley…