A few tour companies advertised biking wine tours, sounded like fun except they were all booked full! So, we rented bikes and made our own wine tour.  It was a lot harder than I expected with all those slopes and upward inclines. I can’t even say they were hills but it felt like it. Stopping at several wineries that day, one of my favorite vineyards was the Simonsig Wine Estate. The grounds were beautiful and the wine did not disappoint. They are quite commercial and largely exported. Nonetheless, this was not a set tasting like several other vineyards but a menu that you could pick 5 different wines to sample.

 

The next day we booked a cellar tour at Boschendal Estate. While they do make wine their core business is actually fruit! A quick lunch (with roaming roosters) of a toasted sandwich with chicken salad and fried egg we were off to take the tour including a peek into the saving room. They save out bottles from different years and age these, tasting every so often to find the perfect aged moment before releaseing.

Further on the stay in South Africa wine country, we managed to get a table at the widely popular Bread and Wines restaurant at the Môreson vineyard. Accompanied by a bottle of their Mata Mata wine we ordered beer and mustard poached pasture pork hock with spiced corn and sweet cabbage and the Springbok loin with braaied celery with curried parsnip and apple relish.