Weekend in Cape Winelands, Cape Town South Africa

The landscape of Cape Winelands completely blew Napa out of the water!  The wines were also really great, looking back one of the wines from our wedding was from South Africa.

We drove from Cellars-Hoehenort directly to our first vineyard, Fairview Wine & Cheese, where there were lots of goats!  The wine and cheese pairing was perfect!

Our next stop was my favorite winery, Babylonstoren!  It is not only a vineyard but also a beautiful farm and garden, I wanted to go to Babel but there were no more reservations for the rest of the year!  So if you want to go there too, I suggest you make a reservation as soon as you book your flight.  We ended up getting some snacks and meeting the cutest baby at Greenhouse, food was very good and the greenhouse next to it inspired me to one day make Ross build me a greenhouse just like it!

Here’s a map of the grounds- babylonstoren_garden_map

Cape Winelands has three major areas: Paarl, Stellenbosch, and Franschhenok.  We decided to stay in Franschhenok because of the world’s best boutique hotel- Akademie Street Boutique Hotel. 

The photos seriously don’t even do the hotel justice, everything about it was absolutely perfect.  We had custom made cocktails before dinner and sun downers after dinner.

Don’t even get me started on the breakfast! Breakfast and drinks were served in the amazing greenhouse and in the afternoon they have a fire going in the fireplace!

We were reluctant to leave Akademie Street Boutique but we also wanted to go to other vineyards so we started the day driving up the hill to Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve where there is a beautiful scenic vista.

Our next stop was Delaire Graff because it’s a Relaix & Chateau hotel.  We were a bit disappointed because it was a bit more commercial than the other ones we had been to but we did go into the Graff diamond store where I tried on a beautiful pair of diamond butterfly earrings!  Our 5 year anniversary is coming up Ross!

My friend Abby had just gone to Cape Town earlier this year and one of her recommendations was to book a picnic at Boschendal, luckily I looked into it earlier since I’m such a planner because you need to book the picnic 24 hours in advanced!  We are so glad we booked it because the food and views and photos came out amazingly!

Transportation:

If drinking and driving isn’t your thing, you can take the Franschhoek wine tram.  Pricing is very reasonable, only $16.63/adult!

We checked out the town of Stellenbosch before heading to the last vineyard we went to on our way to the airport was Hidden Valley Wines.

Our second favorite meal in Cape Winelands was at Foliage, everything we ordered was delicious!  What we liked was that it was a tasting menu but you could select how many courses so you weren’t stuck with a 7 course meal!

For other food in Cape Town, check out our What to Eat in Cape Town page.

Since coming back from Cape Winelands, we have tried many other South African wines in New York!

What’s your favorite vineyard?

XOXO,

Nina & Ross