A wine tasting tour at the main wine regions near Cape Town
If you like wine, something you can´t miss when visiting Cape Town is going to the winelands around the city, to do some wine tasting. There are many wine regions to visit – the main ones are Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl.
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HOW TO VISIT THE WINELANDS
If you have a car, you can easily drive yourself until the winelands (Stellenbosch is only 50km far from Cape Town). I wouldn´t recommend it, though, for obvious reasons (don´t drink and drive)!
The best option would be doing a tour to the Winelands. You can drink as much as you want, as you don´t have to worry about driving, and also you don´t have to decide which wineries to visit.
There are many agencies that offer the Winelands Tour in Cape Town. I chose Ilios Travel, and I would higly recommend it. We did it in a small group (6 people), it was almost a private tour. We visited amazing wineries, had cheese and wine pairing, and tasted lots of wines (18 in total)!
The guide, Schamiel, was great, funny and had lots of histories to share. He even took us to an extra place, a farm where we could taste craft chocolate, to start the day.
Bloggers tip: another nice way to visit the winelands is cycling – read all about it here.
HOW IS THE TOURYou can either choose the whole day tour, or the half day one. I´d suggest you do the whole day tour, so that you can enjoy it better, and also taste more wines.
The tour starts at 8AM (they pick you up at the hostel), and goes until 5:30PM. You visit three different wineries, with different styles.
Are you going to Cape Town or Stellenbosch? Here you can check all the accommodation options, from hostels to hotels and resorts. And if you book it through this link, you help to mantain this blog online, and you don´t have to pay anything for that.
We started the tour at an extra place, De Villiers, to try craft chocolate (dark and milk), where we also learned about the chocolate process.
The first winerie we visited was Farview, in Paarl, which was also my favourite. It´s a big farm where they produce wine and cheese – at this place we had a lovely wine and cheese pairing (8 wines and 8 cheeses). It was even fancy, at a beautiful place, and a lady would come and explain us about the wine and the cheese before we would taste each of them.
Farview also offers a more simple option of the wine and cheese pairing – instead of tasting 8 kinds, you can book the informal options, where you taste 5 types at the bar, and usually just the more comercial wines. Btw, you can buy the farview cheese at the markets in South Africa – they are very tasty and totally worth it.
The second stop was for lunch (not included in the tour) at Franschhoek, a pretty french village where on Saturdays you can enjoy a cool Art Crafts and Food Market.
The second winerie was in Stellenbosch (the main wine region), and very different the previous one. Tokara is very informal, you just aproach the bar and choose 5 wines to taste, among the many options they offer. The views from the outside area are amazing, deserve lots of pictures.
The last stop was at Blaauwklippen, a beautiful farm from 1682, where we tasted 5 more different wines. At this point usually you´re at least a bit tipsy (18 wines is a lot!), and obviously very happy =)
The full day tour costs 970 rands, and includes the wine tastings, the cheese and wine pairing, the transportation and the guide. Totally worth it!
Here at Ilios Travel site you can find more info about it.
How about you? Have you already been to Cape Town and have some cool tips about the city? Share your ideas leaving a comment here!
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Planning your trip:
– Accommodation: you can book your accommodation here – hotels/hostels comparing and free booking cancel
– Travel Insurance: you have a 15% discount in your travel insurance if you book it using this link, or here you can compare different prices of travel insurances
– Car Rental: compare different prices of car rentals here
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The blogger did the Winelands Tour by invitation of Ilios Travel. I’d like to thank again for the opportunity, and also make it clear that all the opinions present here are independent and personal.
