Day 5 - Wine Tasting

With weather reports calling for clearing skies as the week progressed we decided to wait one more day to head up to Table Mountain...therefore today would be our leisure day.

Well, we wanted to be studious and have an educational leisure day by going out to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. But because the seas were still rough in the morning the ferry wasn't running.

There was nothing else to do but go drink wine.

We started out at Fairview. They had this crazy tower with goats climbing on it. Didn't really understand why until we got inside.

Ever heard of Goats do Roam?

That is a second label for Fairview, as is Spice Route. We tasted several of each and then did a little sampling at the cheese bar.

Next we headed to Warwick.

Easily my favorite of the day.

The wines were delicious, the staff was great, and the pours wer substantial.

It is also the place we learned about the



Wedding Cup

The Story goes that a young lady from a wealthy family wanted to marry the town silver smith. Her father forbade her as the smith was far below the family position. Her grief was so great that her father agreed to let them marry but only if her love could create a cup that two people could drink from at the same time. Her father rested easy thinking he had given her hope so she would recover from her grief and yet posed an impossible task for the smith, hence preventing the eventual marriage. Much to his chagrine the exceptional talent of the sliver smith was not overrated and he was able to create such a cup. They were married and lived happily ever after.

Leigh and I were also successful in our attempt at drinking from the cup. I thought it was such a great story I bought one for my sister who was getting married just a week later.

After a wonderful lunch we went on to Meerlust.

Meerlust is famous for their Rubicon, which I must say is quite tasty.

This was were we met the whiner with her entourage. Only carried AMEX and didn't have any ID or Passport. She only wanted to buy wine that you couldn't get in the US. Didn't want to taste it. She wanted direct shipping to her house in FL were she retired to from NY.

Yeah, perfect.

We waited until she was done, then resumed our tasting. We tasted, chose, purchased, roamed the grounds, and left while she was still trying to get approval from AMEX.

That was our tour of the Stellenbosch wine region of South Africa.