There are hundreds of wineries around this region of South Africa and since driving around by myself to taste wine just doesn't seem like a good idea, I took a tour, where we visited 3 wineries (4 if you include the cheetah project where we didn't taste wine).
It was nice to get out of town and explore some new places. The town of Stellenbosch, where the main campus of Stellenbosch University is, seems to be a really beautiful little town with gorgeous Cape Dutch architechture. We also visited Franschhoek, a French town founded by the Huegenots, which has lots of nice little stores and restaurants.
It provides such a contrast to the way we've been thinking about the wine regions... for the last month, I've been thinking of alcoholism, the troubles of the farm workers, the "dop" system (a long outlawed system where workers get part of their wages in alcohol instead of money)... this is the other side of the coin. You would never guess there were any challenges at all from the descriptions of the tour guides.
At any rate, it was a beautiful day and we had some lovely wines - the expensive ones were in the price range of R50 - about $7. I bought a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on sale for R10 (just over $1)! And while its not as complex as some, it's a tasty wine (I opened it tonight to have with dinner).
Salud!
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