South Africa: The Winelands
Posted By Sika on March 11, 2009
In Franschhoek we stayed at the Franschhoek Group Accomodation. We were a bit nervous when we got there because the place looks like an institution. As in, the type of place to which one can be involuntarily committed. But the rooms are sweet and neat, with duvets and comfortable twin beds. The couple running the place are incredibly nice and helpful and let you check email in their office if it’s not too busy. The kitchen, though small and equipped with a microwave and a countertop oven/stove combo, works for how it’s needed. If you’re on holiday, there are approximately 500,000 restaurants it would be a shame not to sample the food from, and the kitchen should really only be used for breakfast and heating leftovers. Really, the only necessary equipment is the fridge—needed for storing all the homemade cheeses and other such yummy foods.
We went to Stellenbosch to see a movie, but only because the selection in Paarl sucked and Franschhoek doesn’t have a movie theatre. I wouldn’t recommend Stellebbosch. Jon said he found it to be too Afrikaner: it’s got the only university in the world that still teaches only in Afrikaans. I would add that it doesn’t feel as pleasantly small town as Paarl or Franschhoek. Things seemed tenser and more college town-y there; not in the sense of artsiness or whatever, but in the impersonal and mall-y sense.
It did amuse me and David that we could head into a new town and, strictly by gut feeling, get within a couple of blocks of a movie theatre.
Franschhoek is a nice, little, walk-around town with antique shops and boutique clothes shops and other little places to peer into. There’s no need to drive it, which is good because it seems that three-quarters of all the Cape tourists hire a white VW Golf Citi (although ours was a Citi Sport which is obviously superior and did make it easier to identify. At least from the back). It can be difficult to tell which white vaguely 70s throwback is on loan to whom.
We did a winery tour at Solms-Delta, a nice little place that has a trust for workers and their children. It enables improvements to the living areas, improvements like water and such, and scholarships to school.
The otherwise sweet guy who runs the Group Accommodation where we were staying said that the trust blocked the Solms guy from being able to invest with them in another, less group-oriented guest house. And that seemed to be to him indicative of the problem of the new South Africa: good intentions blocking economic growth. Seems to me, though, that the methods aren’t just different, the priorities are sifferent too. Feeding money into an unequal and insupportable system isn’t the goal for the SA government—even though that makes the GDP look better. What’s important is a redistribution of wealth, assets, and (most importantly) education—which they are attempting to do without taking away from anybody.
More than their politics, Solms-Delta is an interesting winery with excellent wines. They make a few by desiccating the grapes on the vine, which is an old, rarely used technique of strangling bunches of grapes on the vine until they desiccate, funnily enough. This results in a stronger, more intense flavour. Their best wine using that method is the 2005 Africana, which is on Somebody Important’s list of wines you must drink before you die. It is very rich and smooth and totally worth the price.
My next favorite wine of theirs is the Cape Jazz Shiraz. It is a slightly sweet, bubbly-ish red wine—what they call an “easy drinking” wine. It is definitely easy drinking, and it’s kind of fun and a bit tickly as it goes down. The flavour, although a bit sweet and rich, is not cloying. Unfortunately, I can’t find anyone who distributes it in the US. There was also a good Semillon, but it wasn’t as notable as the others.
We also went to Fairview, in Paarl, most notable for its goat tower, which the goats refused to climb for my photos, and the many different types of cheese. We decided to upgrade our tasting (tastings at Solms-Delta are free). The price for tasting at Fairview is leveled depending on which wines and how many cheeses you want access to. We chose the “higher” level nearly as much for the extra cheeses as for the extra line of wine. It ended up being a good choice anyway, because the Spice Route wines were the best—including flavoursome Chakalaka—grapes so complicatedly flavoured you can almost taste cinnamon. The Oom Pagel Semillon was also very nice: light, a bit sweet, a bit buttery, but not too much.
The cheeses, though, those were so amazing. There was a camembert and a blue and camembert blend and some farm cheeses and herbed soft goat cheeses, and, and, and . . . . We were hard pressed at times whether to eat the delicious soft/crusty bread with the cheeses or to eat the cheeses alone and eat the bread with the excellent olive oils provided—one mild and the other extra virgin.
For Christmas, we ate at Monneaux, a nice, French restaurant about 5 minutes out of town proper on the road to Paarl. It was very nice, and the wine we picked was quite good, although I don’t remember the details about either. David says we split a goat cheese soufflé, which was delicate and melty and delicious. He had the lamb, and I remember that being yummy.
We had lunch at ici one day. ici is the bistro attached to Le Quartier Francais, which is a world renowned French restaurant. All Le Quartier Francais offers is a tasting menu—I think 5 courses. It is always booked in advance and for Christmas it was especially bad—I called in October and they were booked up all through December and January. But, if you can’t get in there, you only need a couple days notice to get in for lunch or dinner at ici. The food is excellent. It was by far the best food we had in Franschhoek, and that’s saying a lot. I had a mushroom filled pasta, David had a perfectly done steak fillet, and they were both transcendent. Flavoursome, not too dry or greasy, spiced and herbed to perfection. And they had homemade ginger beer—spicy and sweet with that gingery-fresh bite.
We did get to sample one tasting menu; we stayed an extra day in Franschhoek so we could go to Le Bon Vivant. For all the diners, the meal started with something they called by a fancy name but was actually an updated ‘50s style salmon in aspic. Then began the wines: a new glass for each course—we were glad Le Bon Vivant was in walking distance to the hostel. The first course was a salmon smoothie. The taste was perfect, and the texture was better than what I expected when I heard the ill-fated words “salmon smoothie.” I think it would’ve been better, however, billed as a cold soup instead. And far more importantly, served with a spoon instead of a straw.
David told them he doesn’t eat pork, although that is mostly because he doesn’t like the pork aftertaste. There were about 3 courses that had some kind of pig in them, but they only remembered to remove it in the main course. I was jealous, because although the pork belly I had with the springbok was good, the springbok, tender and juicy and melt in your mouth yum (and not tasting like chicken) was the best part. And David got two pieces. The springbok and the refreshing sorbets were the best parts of the meal and totally worth the experimenting in the previous courses—even if the experimentation hadn’t been worth it in its own right, which it was.
No comments yet.