.: A wine tour to Elgin

A lovely American couple booked a tour, specifying that they preferred cool climate varietals, especially Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot noir. After we presented them with the best alternatives, they chose Elgin, so they were fetched from The Taj and taken there on a lovely summer day. Elgin is a relatively new wine producing area, and is internationally famous as a producer of excellent apples and pears and an equally famous apple drink

We began the experience at Oak Valley, a huge estate whose hundreds of oak trees feed the pigs. The acorns influence the flavour of the hams for which the estate is famous. Wine is quite a small component in the business of the farm - fruit and cut flowers are the prime focus and Wagyu cattle also play a part in the farm's activity

But we were there for the wine. The wine tastings are held in the Pool Room. Sadly, this is not operating as a restaurant at present, but we hope that a new operator will be found to run it and the deli

Fabio Turilli gave us a a warm welcome

and gave us very instructive and well- informed tasting through the farm's extensive range of wines

watched by Kevin the peacock

Our next stop was at Almenkerk. The ultra modern winery was designed by the renowned Cape Town architect Derick Henstra

Our tourists loved the beautiful landscape

and insisted on posing in front of it

Malefane "Famous" Moeketsi guided us through a very good tasting of the wines

He has completed WSET Level One, scoring 86%, and has started on Level Two

Dana and Michael were especially impressed with the Chardonnay and the Syrah

As always, we and other visitors had a very warm welcome from owners Natalie Opstaele and Joris van Almenkerk

Natalie was very kind and took us through the cellar, explaining how they work

Next stop was at Paul Cluver, where we had booked for lunch at Craig Cormack's lovely restaurant, SALT

Lynne loves cats, so I took pictures of this one which was drinking deeply from the pond

The Menu

Michael's starter, Salt and Pepper Squid

Dana had Three Flavoured Fish

and Michael had Miso Cured Pork Neck as his main course

while John fell for the excellent Twice-Baked Cheese Soufflé

The Paul Cluver Estate Chardonnay was an excellent partner to the food

After lunch, we went into the tasting room with one objective

Michael had heard very good things about the Seven Flags Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

He loved them and bought them

He had enjoyed the Riesling the evening before

From Paul Cluver, we drove up to Iona,

perched on top of the hill overlooking the Elgin Valley on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other

General Manager Brad Gold CWM met us and started with a walk though a vineyard, explaining their philosophy of working as naturally as they can, with minimal chemical interference. In fact, the only factor which prevents them being completely organic is the need to spray sulphur on the vineyards to combat the mildew which results from the frequent mists which cover the farm