Red, Red, Wine

Today (Nov. 1, 2008) was spent with our mouths and noses buried in wine glasses tasting South African wines in the Franschhoek Valley. The area is called the Winelands and is located under an hour drive from Cape Town. Girl’s Prof. and his wife took us on our adventure where we sampled roughly 30 different types of wines and two brandies. Aside from the occasional glass of wine with dinner, I wouldn’t consider Girl and myself wine connoisseurs. So take our reviews with that in mind.

Our first stop was at the Backsberg winery.


Inside the Backsberg tasting area
With fifteen rand Girl and I were allowed to select five wines and one brandy to taste. Under the assumption that “you get what you pay for,” we decided to allow pricing to determine our selection of wine. We selected five of the more expensive items and waited for our glass to be poured. Unfortunately, this technique did not work out so well because we did not like any of our selections. Most had “a good nose” (i.e., smelled good), but their flavors were disappointing. They all tasted watered down and did not meet the flavorful expectations their aromas had prepared us for. One of the wines was particularly bad and smelled like “a fart in a bottle” (as Prof. put it) and tasted like it had a bit of epoxy resin mixed in.

Making our selections

Sampling the goods

Despite our negative experience with Backsberg wines, we did enjoy their brandy. We decided to taste the brandies that were aged for 5 and 10 years. I expected that there would be little to no difference in taste, but I was very wrong. There was a huge difference: the five year brandy had a taste similar to a weak whiskey while the ten year brandy tasted smooth and sweet. The 10 year old brandy was good enough that Prof. bought himself a bottle.

Our next stop was at La Motte. Happily, it had selections that better appealed to our taste. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the names of all the wines we tasted, but wine numbers one and four were really good. Wine number one was a white wine that had a subtle fruity, apple taste, while wine number four was a deeply colored red that pleased my palette.

La Motte

Guy with his seven samples of wine ready for the tasting

The tasting

A view inside the La Motte wine tasting area
We decided to purchase a bottle of the number 4. It was their 2005 Millennium, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Pertit Verdot. It will go perfect with a slab of steak.

All that alcohol was making us hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant called Dieu Donne for lunch.


It was my first time seeing warthogs and crocodiles on the menu. For about $13 bucks, you can sink your teeth into either. But I decided to pass and instead ordered the calamari, while Girl had lamb curry. Prof. chose line fish and his wife had salmon.

Crocodile or warthog anyone?
After the main courses, a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cokes, desserts, and coffee, it was time to continue the wine tour. Our last stop was at Rickety Bridge, a winery that sits at the bottom of a hill.

Is this a winery or the International House of Pancakes?



A view of the vineyard
Since we had purchased a bottle of red wine at La Motte and Girl prefers white wines, we thought we would taste only whites at this winery. We didn’t really like any of the five whites that we tried here. These wines didn’t have the best nose but tasted adequate, though not good enough for us to pay for a bottle. We did, however, like a 2008 Rose (a nice fruity blush wine) that Prof. and his wife sampled. So we purchased a bottle of that instead.

After the wine tasting, we did a little sightseeing around the area. After eight hours of adventure, it was time to head home. As usual, Girl passed out during the ride back. Good food, good wines, and good company made for a very good day.