The band at The Sir Thomas Brewery in Stellenbosch kicked in to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” as the waiter served our food. We’d stopped in for lunch and palate cleansers after tasting several wines at vineyards in South Africa.

Flying in from Botswana, we’d arrived in Stellenbosch the evening before. Our safaris in Zimbabwe and Botswana were great for animal viewing, but in South Africa we were going on a different kind of safari – we were hunting wines. During our travels through Zimbabwe and Botswana, we had South African wines with dinner just about every night. Most were quite good, and we were eager to taste them at their source.

On the first day, our driver, Jonathon, picked us up at about 10AM from our AirBnB and drove us to the first winery, Tokara. Hundred mile views greeted us as we walked in. The wines were OK, the brandy even better. People were relaxing, and getting in the spirit of the day. The next winery, Warwick, was excellent, and in retrospect, had some of the best wines we tasted. We found out they shipped to a distributor in the States, and Magoo and I ordered a case to split. The day was shaping up quite nicely.

Soon it was time for lunch, and we opted for the Sir Thomas Brewery after all of the wines we’d tasted. We weren’t disappointed, as they had good lagers and wood fired pizza. The crowd was about 1/3 tourist and 2/3 locals. The tourists had come for the beer, the locals for the beer AND the band. In addition to Pink Floyd, they played Van Halen and Dire Straits among other music. They were surprisingly good. It was strange listening to “Another Brick in the Wall” in South Africa, although not as strange as I thought at first. We later heard a band play the same song in Cape Town, which spiked my interest and made me go “hmmmmm…..” Doing some research after returning home, I discovered that the song was banned in South Africa in 1980, after black school children sang it as a form of protest against the inferior apartheid era education they were receiving. “We don’t need no education, We dont need no thought control...”. I love the fact that you can discover history in a brewpub.

We eventually left the brewery, and after one more winery, were done tasting for the day. After relaxing at our AirBnB, we ended up at The Fat Butcher for dinner- more nice wines, including Waterford, a vineyard we intended to taste the next day.

I should talk for just a moment about wine tasting in general. It appears to me that there are three kinds of tasters – those genuinely interested in tasting a variety of wines to form an opinion about a region, or Vineyard; those who are interested in wine, but also want to have a good time, talk and have a leisurely afternoon; and those who are along for the ride. They may not even be huge wine fans, but they enjoy the day, the company, and the moving party. I think in our group of six, we had all three types, which is fine, but it also effects the pace of tasting. That is, the pace slackens as the day goes on.

With that in mind, Magoo and I decided to start tasting earlier the next day, in order to visit a couple of extra vineyards. We’d then go back and pick up the rest of the crew at 11. While the others were just getting up, or lounging around, Jonathan picked the two of us up at 9:00AM and we checked in to Waterford as they opened at 9:30. We followed that up with Dornier, which was right next door. There were excellent wines at both, although I was dumping half of each taste. Tasting wine can be a bit daunting when you start that early.

After we gathered the others at 11, it was on to three more wineries with plenty of fruit of the vine. We also combined various food with the wines we were tasting, and while I’d like to tell you we were doing so to be prudent in our alcohol consumption, the real reason is that it all just tasted so damned good together. For lunch, we had a cheeseboard and charcuterie plate with our tasting. Later, the Wagner brothers did a set of Port and chocolate pairings at one of the vineyards, and at the last winery of the day, we all tasted six cheeses with accompanying wines. It was a full day.

In the late afternoon, we were on the road to Cape Town and city life. It had been a great couple of days in Stellenbosch. The Chenin Blancs, Sauv Blancs, and Bordeaux Blends were concensus favorites. We were divided on the Pinotages. One thing I know for sure is that I will look for more wines from South Africa in the States.

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Addendum: Here are my ranking of the wineries. You can find wines from most of these vineyards in the U.S.

1. Waterford – excellent

2. Warwick – excellent

3. Dornier – Very Good

4. Neil Ellis – Very Good

5. Muratie – Good; also had a nice port

6. Fairview – Good (with excellent cheeses)

7. Tokara – OK, with excellent views, and a nice 10 year old brandy

8. Slaley – Not nearly as good as any of the others

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This is the eighth in a series of short blogs about our trip to Africa in September and October of 2018. I’m not trying to be exact in detail, rather, I’m trying to give a bit of the spirit or feeling of the various parts of the trip. Read at your leisure. Or not.

Related Blogs about the trip to Africa:

Rra Dinare Safari Camp (seventh blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/rra-dinare-safari-camp-in-botswana/

He was Young and Made a Mistake (Sixth blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/he-was-young-and-made-a-mistake-sable-valley-in-botswana/

Vic Falls – The Smoke that Thunders (5th Blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/18/the-smoke-that-thunders/

First Safari Camp, at The Hide (Fourth blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/first-safari-camp/

Fishing and Elephants (Third blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/fishing-and-elephants/

The Drive to Lake Kariba (Second Blog about the trip) – https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/the-drive-to-lake-kariba/

Harare (First Blog about the trip) – https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/harare-zimbabwe/

Zimbabwe (Just prior to departure) – https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/zimbabwe/

Pink Gins (The Genesis)- https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/pink-gins/