Another slow start to the morning as our ride to the wine country wasn’t scheduled until 10am. After grabbing a small breakfast, it was off to a nearby hotel to wait for our ride. We hopped on the bus and found ourselves with two couples from Sweden, a family from Scotland, and a woman from Panama. It was about a 45-minute drive to the wine country and our guide (from Zimbabwe) would occasionally stop the AC so as to not have to shout when giving information regarding what to expect along with very tidbits on Cape Town and the wineries we would visit. The brief stops in AC sometimes made the ride too hot and by the time we were at the first winery I was ready to be out of the van and breathe some fresh air. 

Our first winery was a wine and cheese pairing at Fairview Wine and Cheese. I have only done a couple of wine tastings with Grant in Los Olivos, so I was pleasantly surprised with the cheese pairing. We tried two whites, a rose, and three reds along with six different cheeses (two cow’s milk and four goat’s milk). I haven’t really had too much exposure to various goat’s milk cheese, but honestly enjoyed the goat’s milk cheeses much more than the other two. They had a softer consistency and richer flavor! We ended up grabbing a bottle of the first white wine we tasted to bring with us to Namibia to enjoy on our camping trip in the desert. 

We grabbed a quick lunch at another winery near Franschhoek where we got to talk more with Olga from Panama and the family from Scotland. Their son had recently moved down to Cape Town where he had met his girlfriend and decided to stay past his 3 month visa. He told us he has to leave the country/Africa for a week or two at a time in order to renew his visa. When we noted we were headed to Dubai soon he said that’s often where he goes to reset his South African visa because it’s such a cool city. His father was very interested in talking to Grant and Tim about Spacex, which gave me the time to enjoy being my introverted self and sit back and enjoy the conversation. 

Before we knew it, it was off to the second winery, La Bri Estate. This was a chocolate and wine pairing tasting and honestly turned out to be everyone’s least favorite tasting of the day. We tried three glasses of red wine (a Merlot, Syrah, and a blend) which I was not the biggest fan of as I prefer white wine. Though I will say, the chocolate helped to get the red wine down a little easier although everyone agreed the pairings were a little off. The Scottish father held true to the stereotype of football fan drinking in that he was putting down his whole family’s glasses of wine that they didn’t want and boisterously telling stories which we could understand maybe 50% of his English – he was a riot! We could tell one of the older Swedish men was also enjoying finishing his and his wife’s wine to the last drop.

Our last visit of the day was to the second oldest winery in South Africa, Boschendal. They specialize in making Methode Cap Classique (MCC), which is basically champagne although they can’t call it that because it is not made in France. We tried four different types of MCC and although I couldn’t really tell you much of a difference between them, they were all very good. Everyone was feeling great by the end of the tasting and we enjoyed conversing with everyone in our group. It turned out to be one of the Swedish guys 80th birthday and we sang Happy Birthday to him. He was a young 80 and we noted to ourselves that we hoped we’d be doing the same as him at that age! We grabbed a bottle of the desert champagne we tried before heading back to the van to round out our two bottle case we purchased for about $2 USD at the first winery. We were all set to enjoy our own sundowners in Namibia! 

It was sadly time to end our day and head back into town. We got some good laughs in during the drive back, particularly from one of the Swedish men. He would yell loudly at the guide to repeat random facts – “how many students???” was one of our favorites when passing a university! Also near the end of our drive when heading to their hotel, the couple decided they wanted to get out on a random street corner so they yelled at the driver to stop. They kept yelling at him several times until he actually would stop to let them out (though it had taken a while to find a safe spot to pull over away from traffic). We got off at the next stop as I had suggested we grab dinner at Uno Mas since we would be close to there. And it turned out to be a great suggestion! As we already knew their drinks were delicious, the food was even better! We yet again did not have a reservation but they set seats up for us on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant with the stipulation that we would need to hide our alcoholic beverages or keep them on the window sill so as to not get in trouble (we felt no one actually cared but we followed the rules to be respectful / safe). The three of us enjoyed people watching, especially a suave South African playboy named Gary that sat inches from us (tight quarters) and told us about his travels to Namibia and Kenya each to visit a different woman. He told us these stories in front of another woman he came to the restaurant with, and then got up to very closely greet a woman that happened to walk by with her boyfriend. He played us too in that he said he had great contacts in Namibia he would hook us up with if we left our contact info, but he never did end up messaging Grant. Made for a good story at least. We ended the night with some churros and chocolate sauce before calling it a night.