March 2-3
Sorry for so many posts all together. Michael and I had a four hour road trip today when I could type out the posts and now my wifi is killing it in our AirBNB, so I’m just cranking them all out. When it rains it pours! Back to wine country.
Stellenbosch Hills – Started our day with a biltong/wine pairing. Biltong is just jerky, but the interesting thing about biltong in South Africa is the odd varieties of biltong: ostrich, beef, springbok, kudu. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of jerky, but the kudu and the beef drywors (no clue what that means) were both delicious and the wine pairings were interesting. The guys, being bigger jerky fans, really enjoyed it.
Raats – Here we had this local college student pouring the tasting. In my mind he was the most interesting thing about this winery. He is a buddy of the winemaker’s son, was very charismatic, apparently doesn’t go to class but still gets A’s and sold both the wine and the family really well. He made the tasting a lot of fun. We liked all of the wines, but one thing to note is that the last wine we tasted is used as a pairing at Eleven Madison Park in NYC which is one of the top restaurants in the world.
Jordan – we had a tasting scheduled here, but needed lunch, so we switched to having lunch at their bistro instead. The food was great, beautiful setting and we enjoyed the wines as well.
Maryanne – this was my “I’m super tired from drinking wine all day” espresso stop. After I got that out of the way, there were some great wines, but the best thing about this winery is that the four of us had some notably good conversation on a wide variety of topics that would normally get people heated. But no one got heated – it was just great conversation.
Asara – we did dinner here with wine. Asara was one of our favorites from the last time we were in Stellenbosch and we loved it. A lot. So we were a little nervous about coming back, but it did not disappoint. The food was incredible and the wines held up again. We started off with their white cabernet which was delicious. Michael had a glass of Cape Fusion, delicious. Bell Tower, spot on. Avondale, incredible.
It was really wonderful being back at Asara. We looked into staying there for our one night in Stellenbosch but it was too expensive. Next time, for sure.
Day 2
Stark Conde – this was a great way to start off our last day in wine country. They had a great outdoor space set up for breakfast, but we headed inside to the barrel room for a tasting. The woman who poured our tasting was really knowledgeable and was a huge value add to the tasting. The wines were delicious but what I liked was that their cheapest Sauv Blanc was my favorite of their whole list. I think it ended up costing like 6 or 7 bucks. That’s a case that I would have liked to take home if we were heading back to the states now.
Waterford – Another favorite from our last visit. Phil and Krystal had recommended the Jem to us, so last visit we did a wine and chocolate pairing and had a glass of the Jem. Obsessed. This made us pumped to go back.
This time we did the reserve tasting: we had the 2009 Chardonnay, the 2006 Jem and the Kevin Arnold 2005 Shiraz and 2006 Cab Sauv. Reminder that if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We should have done a chocolate tasting and a glass of the Jem. All four of the wines were good, but none were amazing. The 2006 Cab Sauv was Michael’s favorite. Probably mine too. Next time: glass of Jem and chocolate and wine pairing.
Waterkloof – Last time we went to Waterkloof, we had an incredible lunch and did a Merlot tasting that compared the 2006 to the 2009. It resulted in us buying 3 bottles of each – both were really really good. Popping back in here, we couldn’t do lunch, so we did a tasting with a cheese and bread platter.
The wines were good, but not as good as last time. We are thinking they may have grown a little too big or something. Or perhaps they’re selling more, so the wines they gave us are newer than what we had relative to the last visit. We’re not sure, but the best thing from that tasting (and the only thing that Vanessa bought) was the mango chutney that they had on the cheese plate and that was sold at the deli down the street.
So after having such an amazing trip to Cape Town last visit, we were worried that it wouldn’t hold up to what we remembered. It definitely did! Things changed and some things weren’t as good as we remembered, or had changed (as things do). But for everything that was slightly less good, we found 3 new things that were incredible. Sorry for my over use of the word delicious. I know it’s a boring word that does not properly describe what we were eating and drinking, but short of taking notes as we’re tasting (which I refuse to do), you all get either a “delicious” or a “meh” as my main descriptor.
We still love Cape Town and it is still our favorite city in the world. If it was closer to family, we’d probably move here, but the distance is too much. So, we’ll see you soon, Cape Town! Thanks for still being wonderful!