True to form as the inveterate alcoholic everyone knows I secretly am, the place I visited in my spare time during the first weekend upon arriving in Cape Town were the Cape Winelands.
We arranged to meet up with a few international colleagues from work at the Fairview Wine and Cheese farm to have lunch and enjoy some subsequent tastings. As I would not partake in the wine tasting I offered to be the driver for the 45-minute drive from Cape Town eastwards to Paarl.
An amazing view down the slopes of the vineyards.
After having enjoyed an extensive meal (‘een bodemke leggen’) we explored the wine and cheese tasting facilities. We got served six different wines accompanied by six corresponding types of cheese. All of the wines and cheeses that were on display had actually been produced locally at the farm, and could be purchased at the farm’s shop. While I confined myself to the cheese tasting, my colleagues enjoined the wines and pretended to be expert wine connoisseurs. For my part I can attest that while some of the cheeses were not particularly spectacular, other cheeses were quite tasty. Likewise my colleagues appreciated some of the wines more than others, although preferences seemed to vary.
After having browsed the farm’s shop and buying some cheeses, we decided to head on over to the neighboring Spice Route farm, where a further range of tastings of local delicacies can be perused. We settled down on a terrace to enjoy a lovely afternoon and ordered some biltong tasting. Biltong is a characteristically South African form of dried meat. Whereas historically biltong was produced to be able to preserve meat for longer periods in the absence of our current technological preservation means such as freezers, nowadays biltong is typically consumed as a snack, although pieces of biltong can also be incorporated in stews, etc. ‘Biltong’ only refers to the process of drying and curing the meat, and the meat itself can originate from various animal species. For our biltong tasting we got a large platter of biltong made from beef, springbok, gemsbok, kudu, and eland; the last four which are different kinds of antelopes. Each of these had a characteristic taste, and they were all quite nice.
A platter with different kinds of biltong.
After the biltong tasting we took a stroll along the Spice Route farm to see which further activities they offered. Some of my colleagues decided to do some chocolate tasting, in which I did not participate because I was completely stuffed from the extensive lunch and the subsequent biltong tasting. There were various exotic types of chocolate available for tasting, although my South African colleagues had previously confided to me that they actually preferred the Belgian chocolates I brought for the office when I arrived in Cape Town over their local chocolates.
After the chocolate tasting even the most gluttonous members of our group had let go of our previous plan of getting an ice cream, and we relaxed in the grass on the slopes of the vineyards. As the sun went down and the wind picked up it was getting chillier, and after a nice day out we returned to Cape Town. In the evening I was still digesting all of the food we had tasted and I settled for a minimal dinner.