Sip the flavor of South Africa’s Wine Country

by Elizabeth Gehrman

Due largely to import restrictions engendered by apartheid, until recent yearas few Americans were well-versed in the wines of South Africa. But the country has actually been producing wine since the 1650s, when the first Dutch settlers arrived. Though the earliest efforts were all but undrinkable, in 1679 one Simon van der Stel arrived as the new commander of the Cape colony and began bottling the first South African wines palatable to Europeans. The city he founded, Stellenbosch, has since become known to oenophiles worldwide as the indisputed hub of South Africa’s “winelands,” as they’re known.

Perhaps the best thing about the area is that you needn’t be a wine snob to appreciate it; it appeals to the novice and the aficionado alike — and even to those who wouldn’t touch the stuff. The dominant white-gabled Cape Dutch architecture somehow manages to combine the grand with the adorable, and the southwestern Cape’s natural beauty alone is worth the trip, particularly in fall (our spring), when vibrant yellows and reds blaze against the deep blue of the surrounding mountain ranges and the cloudless South African sky.

The splendid scenery is no doubt part of the reason that in the three decades since they were mapped out, the wine routes — the best-known are Franschoek, Paarl, and Stellenbosch — have become one of South Africa’s biggest tourist draws, with wineries ranging from huge operations to small, family-run estates. Though foreign visitors usually opt for guided excursions, there is no reason to avoid the self-drive that is favored by locals: The routes are well-marked, there are plenty of B&Bs and guest farms to choose from, and the food along the way is outstanding. In addition to countless fine restaurants, the area has dozens of working farms that produce and sell cheeses, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, nuts, olives, and even ostrich and crocodile meats.

The Franschhoek valley was settled by French Huguenots in the 17th century, and retains much of its early Gallic character. Though the region’s wines suffered a decline in quality after World War II, in 1969 the stunning L’Ormarins estate was adopted by a scion of the Rupert family, which owns a few other little business concerns, including Cartier, Dunhill, Montblanc and Piaget. The revival Anthonij Rupert began intensified in the early ’80s when a group of growers developed the Vignerons de Franschhoek, which greatly contributed to the town’s re-emergence as a force in both the domestic and international markets.

Though it’s known primarily for its whites, today Franschhoek produces excellent reds as well. In addition to L’Ormarins, La Motte (also owned by a Rupert relative), La Bri and Bellingham are worth a stop, as is Clos Cabriere, which specializes in sparkling wines and recently began producing a brandy. Boschendal not only operates perhaps the best restaurant in town, but one of the more beautiful farms as well; from November till April a popular pasttime is lunching alfresco beside its forested lily pond in the shadow of the silvery Drakenstein mountain range.

The Paarl route offers a somewhat different setting, with verdant hillsides rolling away from the winding Berg River. Paarl is the headquarters of the wine industry’s controlling body, the Co-operative Wine Grower’s Association, or KWV, founded in 1918 to combat overproduction. A tour of KWV’s enormous great cathedral, its sherry and export storage cellars — among the largest in the world — is a must for wineland visitors, as is a stop at the spiraling wood-peg staircase of the goat tower at the Fairview estate, known for its appealing, innovative wines.

Other standouts among Paarl’s 35 wineries include Backsberg, which has won several international awards, Villiera, Rhebokskloof and Nederburg, whose annual Cape wines auction, begun in 1975, has become one of the most important events on both local and international buyers’ calendars.

Should you tire of tastings, there are several attractions on or near Paarl’s seven-mile long Main Street, from the Paarl Museum to the Afrikaans Language Monument, opened in 1975 to commemorate the long struggle that ultimately gave Afrikaans equal status with English. For a different perspective, a champagne breakfast or moonlight trail ride up the mountainside with Wine Valley Horse Trails will provide breathtaking views and an unforgettable experience.

Stellenbosch, with more than 70 wineries in a 10-mile radius and the sophisticated atmosphere that characterizes university towns the world over, is the most popular and most famous of South Africa’s wine routes. It’s the country’s second-oldest city, after Cape Town, and references as early as the late 1600s mention its wines. Today, there are so many excellent wineries — along with three major distilleries — that it is hard to determine which not to see when your time is limited.

Though it is not officially on the wine route, the Stellenbosch Farmer’s Winery is a good place to start, as it is the foremost wine operation in South Africa, and just got even bigger, merging with Distiller’s Corporation, one of South Africa’s largest liquor companies. In summer, its Oude Libertas amphitheater hosts first-rate drama, dance and music performances, and year-round, the Oude Libertas restaurant shows off the wines to their best advantage with truly exquisite meals served beside a cozy fireplace or on one of the expansive balconies. Other popular choices are Spier, with its on-site art gallery; the well-established Neethlingshof; the award-winning Simonsig; and Overgaauw, which makes one of the best ports in the southwestern Cape.

Though wines are what made Stellenbosch famous, they are far from its only draw. The town itself is beautiful, with centuries-old oak trees lining its wide boulevards, formal and informal gardens everywhere, and bright white Cape Dutch homes restored in abundance. Much of this reverence for history can be attributed to the presence of the Stellenbosch Village Museum, a series of house museums that take up two blocks in the center of town and cover different periods of architectural development, from 1709 to 1870. The Toy and Miniature Museum features miniature houses, antique dolls, room boxes and a railway layout, and the 1777 V.O.C. Kruithuis, a military museum, is the only powder magazine to have survived from the days when the Cape was a possession of the Dutch East India Company.

Oom Samie se Winkel is not a museum, but it may as well be.  Stepping into this gingerbread-porched general store — “Uncle Sam’s” — is like walking into the past. It’s crammed with antiques, calabashes, chairs, farm implements, leather whips, and even sharkskin, and the scents of its old-fashioned sweets and chewing tobacco rolls will evoke a certain nostalgia for a time and place you never even visited, until you came to Stellenbosch.