South African Wines Part Five: Epic wines

After showing Cape Town to our visitors, we were heading out on our EPIC ROAD TRIP up the west coast of South Africa into Namibia and across Botswana back to Joburg. For the first half of our trip, we knew we'd be staying in self-catering lodges and cabins. Which meant we needed to bring our own supplies for cooking and dining and ... drinking. So back to the Cape Winelands we went to stock up. On this foray, we visited the wine estates of Meerlust, Vergelegen, Rust en Vrede and L'Ormarins.

Meerlust in Stellenbosch is one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa. Granted to Henning Huising in 1693, its manor house was the inspiration for James Michenor's Trianon estate in The Covenant.

We sampled and purchased a variety of wines during our tasting but we came for the Meerlust Rubicon. The story goes that after Nico Marburgh, father of the current custodian of Meerlust, returned from a vacation in Bordeux he convinced winemaker Giorgio Dalla Cia that the terroir in the Eerste River Valley was similar to the one found in Bordeux.

In 1980, after several years of experimentation, they came up with the first blended wine bottled in South Africa. 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, and 10% Cabernet Franc, they named it Rubicon. After all, they had crossed a new frontier and like Caesar, there could be no turning back.

Rubicon is not a wine we necessarily wanted to be bringing on the road with us. It is a wine worth setting aside for special occasions. We shipped a case back to Joburg for the future. But we did pick up one of each of the six wines we tried in our tasting to take on our trip. Including the 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2011 RED, the 2012 Pinot Noir and the 2012 Merlot.

Next stop, Vergelegen in Somerset West. Like Meerlust, 300 year old Vergelegen is a historic wine estate with a graceful and beautifully appointed manor house. In this case, the Homestead and the associated Library and other buildings are open to the public and filled with impressive antiques, paintings and tapestries.






Vergelenen also boasts beautiful gardens, a fine dining establishment, Camphors at Vergelegen and a bistro-style restaurant, the Stables at Vergelegen. You can also choose to take away a picnic menu and dine in the shadow of a centuries-old camphor forest.

We chose to pull up a table in the Wine Tasting Center and sample some wine. We took away several of the whites including the 2010 Chardonnay Reserve, the 2011 Sauvignon Blanc Reserve and their delicious dessert wine, the 2011 Semillon Straw Wine.

Since it was a Saturday and most of the wine estates close their tasting and sales rooms by 2:00 on Saturdays, we beat feet over to Rust en Vrede in time for a final wine tasting and more importantly, the Winemaker's Lunch in their award-winning restaurant.

Rust en Vrede translates to "Rest and Peace" and its wine has an impressive pedigree. Nelson Mandela chose a Rust en Vrede wine to be served at his Nobel Peace prize dinner. It was the first South African red wine to be named in Wine Spectator Magazine's Top 100 Wines of the World. In 2009 winemaker Coenie Snyman was named Diners Club Winemaker of the Year and in the same year the Rust en Vrede Restaurant was also named as one of the Top 100 Restaurants in the world. The list goes on and on and if you want to know more, you are going to have to visit yourself. Not exactly a hardship by the way!

We tasted and took away several wines, once again one of mostly all we tasted, including the 1694 Classification (2011) which is a Syrah dominant blend with Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2011 Single Vineyard Syrah, the 2011 Single Vineyard Cab and the 2011 Estate blend.

After lunch  we visited the Franchhoek Motor Museum which was open until 4:00 on a Saturday. The Museum is situated on a wine estate so we were able to sneak in a final couple of bottles of their L'Ormarins Port for the trip.

After all, an EPIC ROAD TRIP deserves an epic wine list.

For links to more South African Wine blog posts check out South African Wines Part Four.