This
annual celebration has Franschhoek's wine farms opening their doors to the
public with special tastings and fun events over a weekend. The weather played
along and we had a great time visiting several wine farms on Saturday. It was
not as busy as we expected, but everyone we saw was having a super time. As it
was the weekend after Heritage Day, there was a lot of braaiing going on
A
tragic note after the weekend was hearing of the tragic loss of Jenny Prinsloo in a collision on the Helshoogte Pass. Jenny was
CEO of Franschhoek Tourism and played a most important role in taking
Franschhoek to its very prominent place on the South African tourism map. We
mourn her loss with all of Franschhoek and her family
We began at Boschendal. It has been rather a long
time since we visited. This is the Rhone Homestead now a restaurant which is
next to the wine cellar, the festival was being held on the lawn here
You walk down the oak avenue, now in beautiful new
spring green leaf
Hamburgers on the grill. They had advertised
sausages, but we saw none. Sadly, the burgers we saw (which had been discarded)
were very brown on the outside and very raw on the inside. They did not tempt
us
There was also one of two bubblies for tasting. If you
wanted the other one there was a small charge
Moody weather over the mountains, but it was warm
and didn't rain although it had been forecast. Perhaps that is why numbers were
rather low?
Off to GlenWood where we encountered Guy Kedian of Stellenbosch
Vineyards with GlenWood's cellarmaster/general manager DP Burger, both old
friends
We enjoyed some fun and Chardonnay with Guy and and his partner Jackie Rabe, Sales and Marketing Director at Strandveld Wines,
Then we went off to the other end of the valley to
visit two farms we had not been to before. The first was Lynx, where we bumped
into old Franschhoek friends whom we haven’t seen for a long time
Down the road from Lynx, La Chataigne and Topiary
had combined their celebrations on Topiary. La Chataigne is building a new
tasting venue. Superb views of the Helshoogte pass to Stellenbosch and the
Simonsberg Mountains across the vines
They had some good wines on special and a couple
of boxes went home to our cellar. We bought the La Chataigne Kastanje 2013,
made from Chenin blanc with a dash of Semillon, and Topiary Shiraz 2013
We chatted to co-owner winemaker Philippe Colin,
who was serving the wine. It was a popular destination
© John & Lynne
Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016
© John & Lynne
Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016