Thursday, August 11, 2016

A visit to Tulbagh - The cottages at Saronsberg

To tranquil Tulbagh
We had been invited to visit several places in or near Tulbagh and some of the invitations were more than a year old; we just struggle to cram the many places and invitations we receive into our agenda. We had a reasonably clear week, so we accepted as many as we could. Car problems set us back and the original 5 days planned turned into three, but we had an amazing time with lovely sunny days and chilly late winter nights. Our hired car was great. What follows are various chapters of our lovely three days with the hospitable people of Tulbagh. Besides tasting great wines, it was also rather an eating marathon. Tulbagh is a small historic town nestled up a quiet and beautiful valley one and a half hours drive from Cape Town. You do need to plan a visit, you will love it
We began at Saronsberg
They have several commodious self catering cottages on the farm which they let out all year round and they kindly offered us accommodation there for the two nights we were in Tulbagh. We arrived on Monday morning, settled in and then made for the tasting room.
Our cottage was a two bedroom - one double bedded room and one single. You park outside and all the cottages have outdoor braai areas and terraces
The open fire in the lounge area was welcome and the small self catering kitchen is adequately supplied with both a microwave and a small oven grill
They had provided us with a bottle of Saronsberg 2014 Viognier and a bottle of the much lauded 2014 Shiraz
Our bedroom had both air conditioning, a ceiling fan and an electric fire; the latter worked so well to warm up the room on the cold nights.
The single bedroom
We had stopped off at a Wellington farm stall to buy two pepper steak pies for lunch and we enjoyed these enormous pies (one would probably have been sufficient for both of us!) with the floral Saronsberg Viognier, full of peaches and apricots but fresh and textured. It is wooded but subtly so. The views are magnificent.
Sitting under the vine pergola when it is in leaf in the summer must be lovely

And on Tuesday we had a light lunch on the terrace and an opportunity to taste their superb 2014 Grenache, with slightly wild notes on this robust and friendly red wine that sings of the south. More on that wine next week
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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