Discover Durbanville: Five Wineries in Five Hours

The clock has started ticking. You have five hours to visit 5 wineries. You have to taste the wines and completely immerse yourself in the experience. Yours is to soak in all the knowledge and to experience as much as possible. There will be little quizzes along the way. You will be in groups. The group that wins gets an exciting prize at the end of the challenge. Think about this like the Amazing Race but you are going to wineries. Tick tock...

Armed with a Map

If you love wine like I do, visiting wineries may be one of your favorite activities. I come from Kenya and we only have one winery so when I got the opportunity to travel to the Western Cape in South Africa, I was beyond elated.

So let's take a journey. You want as much as possible to enjoy and learn at every stop you make. You also want to try the wines and not get to the point where you have had so much wine that all wines begin to look and smell the same. Today we are in Durbanville, a region in the Western Cape famous for its wine and wheat farms.

The Durbanville wine valley has quickly become the destination of choice for many wine lovers because the wine estate owners have chosen to collaborate versus competing. That has contributed to the success of the area. They market themselves under the #discoverdurbanville umbrella and after you visit one wine farm, it is recommended that you visit oter farms because each gives a different experience.

On the map, they have the following 12 wine estates Phizante Kraal wines, Bloemendal, Durbanville Hills, Klein Roosboom, Nitida, Altydgedacht, D’Aria, Diemersdal, De Grendel, Hillcrest, Meerendal, and Signal Gun.

We visited De Grendel, Durbanville Hills, Klein Roosboom, Hillcrest and Diemersdal.

HOUR 1: DE GRENDEL WINE ESTATE

This was the first winery we visited and as soon as we arrived, they were quick to pour some sparkling wine and we were quickly ferried by the truck to the winery. This is a big wine estate and it took about ten minutes from the gate to the winery. They had some stunning wines and the view of Table Mountain was so breathtaking.

There was a welcome breeze cooling us as we listened to the wine maker explain how they make their wines. We also had a brief cellar tour and for me, this is where the magic happens. Isn’t it fascinating how grapes can produce diverse flavors when they are made into wine? They also have a restaurant that serves contemporary cuisine with some South African influences. Their menu changes daily and they source ingredients locally. As soon as we were done enjoying our wine, we were back on the road to our second winery. Time goes by so fast when you are having fun.

Trying to gracefully hold a glass while on the back of a truck.

Pic/Johan Coetzee Photography

Table Mountain Views

I want this wall in my house

HOUR 2: DURBANVILLE HILLS WINE ESTATE

Every wine estate tries to be unique. What I loved about Durbanville Hills is that they allowed us to go to the underground cellars where wine was aging. We even took part in a small challenge where we were supposed to identify different wines and their characteristics.

The Sauvignon Blanc was a favorite among many. They also had a nice full bodied Merlot that would be perfect when paired with a juicy steak. They have a huge wine shop for visitors to purchase wines. This winery came about as a partnership between Distell and seven winemakers who agreed to collaborate and build a winery in 1990. Their first vintage was in 1999.

The entrance of the winery

The Shop

Aging wine

Learning about wine flavours

HOUR 3: HILLCREST WINE ESTATE

So far we had been wowed by amazing vineyards and we were on to Hillcrest which was on the Tygerberg Hills. What I loved about them was that apart from having a winery, they also have a brewery and they make olive oil. They even give you a chance to bottle your own olive oil. They make some craft beer at their Havoc Brewery and a hit among many was the African Red Ale. It was nice to taste some craft beer after so much wine sipping and savoring.

Goofing around with other global wine bloggers. Pic/Johan Coetzee Photography
Neat stacks of wine

Bottling our olive oil

Cheers!

HOUR 4: KLEIN ROOSBOOM WINE ESTATE

While every winery tries to be bigger, better and boisterous, this one was not and because of that, it was memorable. It didn't even have the flair that the others had. It was meek and yet, it became the most memorable. It had little caves and each cave had a different experience. For example, if you walked into the Sauvignon Blanc cave, you would find fruit with flavors of a Sauvignon Blanc. This included light crisp foods. When you moved to the heavier red wines you would get to taste chocolates and spices corresponding to the wines’ flavors. They made the wine tasting experience truly memorable.

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How it looks. You can see the openings to the caves / nooks

Obligatory wine-in-the-air pose

The Sauvignon Blanc room

In this room we learned about rose wine

Sip Sip

HOUR 5: DIEMERSDAL WINE ESTATE

At this point, everyone was famished and we had tasted so many wines. We just wanted to eat. We got to sit with the winemakers from all the wineries in Durbanville and we had the most delicious lunch ever. The menu has been carefully crafted to go with the wines. They brought huge food platters at every section of the table and people would just help themselves. I sat next to a winemaker from Nitida Wines. We did not get to see the Diemersdal Winery but we tried their wines.

The arrangement before lunch

Lunch

Food

Wine

Dessert

The winning team got some wine. After some time, everyone got wine to carry home. Now it was time to decide how many wines you can stuff in a suitcase before it becomes too much.

We won so much wine

It started raining immediately after we got in the car

Authored by @jeanwandimi Photos taken by @jeanwandimi with Canon G7x and Canon Rebel t5i