{"id":1014,"date":"2018-08-31T14:12:34","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1014"},"modified":"2018-08-31T17:12:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T17:12:18","slug":"impressions-of-south-african-wine-tasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1014","title":{"rendered":"Impressions of South African Wine Tasting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only one of us has been wine tasting in South Africa and Steve was only there briefly, so we can\u2019t offer much in the way of recommendations or meaningful reviews.\u00a0 So this will be about the experience<\/em>, rather than the wines, which is what Power Tasting is all about.<\/p>\n

Steve was in Cape Town on business and gave himself the weekend to overcome the jet lag.\u00a0 He found himself alone, 8,000 miles from home and that Sunday was his birthday.\u00a0 So\u00a0to shake the blues\u00a0he went wine tasting.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the best known winemaking areas in South Africa are quite near to Cape Town.\u00a0 Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek are less than an hour\u2019s drive from downtown.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Steve had no car, no idea of where to go and besides they drive on the wrong side of the road there.\u00a0 Then and now, the American dollar goes pretty far in South Africa, so Steve found a taxi and hired it for the day.<\/p>\n

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Nederburg Winery, with dining tables outside.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of Spice4Life.<\/em><\/p>\n

The taxi driver was no wine enthusiast and had no particular idea where he was going, either.\u00a0 Steve had read up on South African wines and had a few wineries in mind for a visit.\u00a0 He was lucky that they were fairly close to one another: Meerlust, Nederburg and Spier were on his list.\u00a0 Amazingly quickly, Steve was seeing grape vines out the taxi window and in a half an hour he had arrived at Spier.<\/p>\n

One thing he quickly learned was that they don\u2019t call them vineyards but rather \u201cwine farms\u201d which, when you think about it, makes a lot of sense.\u00a0 The second thing he learned is that South Africa has a significant wine history.\u00a0 In the 19th<\/sup> century, it was a world-class producer; the Constantia wine estate grew one of the world\u2019s most coveted dessert wines.\u00a0 (You can still get a sense of it with Klein Constantia Vin de Constance, but according to the historians it\u2019s not the same thing.)\u00a0 Next, Steve learned that many of the better wine farms have top-notch restaurants.\u00a0 Steve\u2019s lunch was local lamb chops and a bottle Nederburg\u2019s best Cabernet Sauvignon.<\/p>\n

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The Drakenstein Mountains.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of SA-Venues.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of Steve\u2019s best memories of his visit was the beauty of the vineyards at the foot of the Drakenstein (\u201cDragon\u2019s Stone\u201d) Mountains.\u00a0 Of course there are many vineyard areas in Wine Country with vines and mountains, Napa Valley not the least.\u00a0 But the views in Paarl and Franschhoek are particularly striking.<\/p>\n

Most of the wines in South Africa are from familiar grapes but there is a sort of wine that is unique.\u00a0 Called Pinotage, it is from grapes cross-bred between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, beginning in the 1920\u2019s.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t taste quite like anything else and frankly, we\u2019re not big fans of Pinotage.\u00a0 But it does add a certain local flavor to a visit to South Africa, where there are a few rather excellent wines, from better known grapes, to taste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only one of us has been wine tasting in South Africa and Steve was only there briefly, so we can\u2019t offer much in the way of recommendations or meaningful reviews.\u00a0 So this will be about the experience, rather than the wines, which is what Power Tasting is all about. Steve was in Cape Town on … Continue reading Impressions of South African Wine Tasting<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1033,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions\/1033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}