For close-up encounters with wild animals in their natural habitat, it’s hard to beat a safari in Kruger National Park and the adjacent Greater Kruger area. In addition to the state-owned national park, some 20 fenceless private reserves flanking the park’s western border combine to create a vast 2,250,000ha wilderness area.

Watered by the Sand and Sabie rivers, the lusher south attracts the highest concentrations of game, and in the private concessions – a few located within Kruger National Park but most found in the private reserves of Greater Kruger – knowledgeable guides and the right to traverse off-road can bring you within spitting distance of predators. Conveniently, it’s also a year-round destination: from May, when winter pares back foliage and water sources shrink, animals are easier to spot, and sunny days are bookended by bitingly cold but clear nights. Summer can be hot and humid, but dramatic thunderstorms perfume the air with petrichor, migrant birds flit by like jewels and the flowering knob thorns are puffs of pale yellow under a deep-blue sky.

Less enthralling, at least until recently, was the wine offering. With the exception of Luke Bailes, founder of Singita, lodge owners saw wine selection as secondary to building suites the size of apartments, with plunge pools burbling in timber decks. House wines were, for the most part, risible – unforgivable really, given what’s been being produced across the Cape in the past two decades – but recent years have seen a marked improvement.

For wine consultant Stephan Niehaus, who moved to the Lowveld in 2017, the challenge was not only to improve lists but to root wine culture in a region more than 1,500km from the Cape. ‘It’s no good having a cellar full of amazing wines without knowledgeable and passionate wine stewards and sommeliers,’ he says. ‘Wine tastings and intensive training trips to the Cape can make a huge difference. The lodge owners that have grasped this are reaping the rewards. If great wines are an integral part of the safari experience, and shipping arrangements easy, guests can also relive their safari memories once home.’

Here, then, are four Kruger lodges that offer an in-house tour of the Cape winelands – and Cheetah Plains is another worth highlighting. All have been picked for their hospitality, location, accommodation and, of course, game viewing. Conservation is an expensive business, so none, I’m afraid, is cheap. But with ecotourism a key plank of conservation here, you’re playing your part in protecting one of the world’s greatest wildlife sanctuaries.

Singita Lebombo

Southeastern Kruger National Park

Singita is the most awarded safari outfit in Africa, and justifiably so: now in four African countries, it offers an experience that floors even the jaded. Lebombo is a personal favourite, as much for the 25m lap pool and groundbreaking Community Culinary School as the location: an exclusive 15,000ha concession in the remote southeast of Kruger National Park, where large prides of lion tussle over territory.

The lodge comprises 15 contemporary glass-walled suites, plus a four-bedroom villa; the best are elevated and cantilevered off steep, vegetated banks above the N’wanetsi river. There are daily tastings in the wine studio and sommeliers and wine stewards are trained to match diverse preferences with a meticulously curated wine list that covers a wide range of winemaking styles.

Visionary conservation-hotelier Luke Bailes invested heavily in Singita’s wine collection from the outset. But its Premier Wine Direct program (which enables guests to ship wines they enjoyed on safari to their homes) really took shape after Bailes noted the impact former head chef and wine judge Francois Rautenbach’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the local wine industry had on guests. Today, Singita’s collection is almost 200,000 bottles strong, most of which are stored in an energy-efficient maturation facility in Stellenbosch – only when a wine has reached its full potential is it shipped to the lodges.

Singita has also led the way in training, providing annual visits to the Cape Winelands and online engagement with producers. New buying specialist Jörg Pfützner says: ‘We aim to reflect the dynamic nature of the wine industry, identifying producers who are capturing the beauty of the Western Cape through the lens of wine. Our aim is to connect guests with this, and create extraordinary memories of where and with whom these wines were consumed.’ From R45,560 pp per night.

How to get there

It’s quickest to fly directly to Satara airstrip (45 minutes from the lodge) in Kruger National Park from Johannesburg with Federal Airlines. Guests are collected by Singita.

Malewane Lodge

Thornybush Nature Reserve, Greater Kruger

The first hospitality project of owners Liz and Phil Biden, Malewane Lodge launched what became the Royal Portfolio, a circuit of world-class properties in some of SA’s most desirable locations. The portfolio includes La Residence, their working wine farm in Franschhoek; Birkenhead House, a beach villa perched on a promontory overlooking the Walker bay whale nursery; and the Silo Hotel, part of the iconic Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.

Malewane Lodge is located in Thornybush Nature Reserve – a 15,000ha private reserve to the west of Kruger, with which it shares a fenceless border. The landscape is more monotonous than the lusher south, but game densities are high, and guiding is among the best in Africa. Dining has always been stellar, but wines really took off in 2021, when the Bidens tasked Court of Master Sommeliers-certified sommelier Wayve Kolevsohn with taking their offer to the next level. This she has done, in abundance.

Guests have close to 30 wines available by the glass or bottle, and the selection is superb, showcasing predominantly small-batch, new-wave South African producers. You can dip into this at any time; a tasting can even be arranged at a sunset table set up in the bush. Or enjoy the meal pairings – Kolevsohn works closely with executive chef Archie Maclean. ‘So many have never tasted South African wines before, or at least not at this level. It is such a privilege to present young, up-and-coming wine producers, and showcase the enormous diversity that the Cape winemakers are producing,’ says Kolevsohn. From R47,500 pp per night.

How to get there

A few airlines fly directly from Cape Town or Johannesburg to Hoedspruit’s small Eastgate airport, located just outside Kruger. From here it’s a 45-minute transfer by road.

More Tinga & Narina

Southern Kruger National Park

Part of the More Family Collection – a small portfolio of excellent lodges and hotels that has grown from a parcel of land in Sabi Sand purchased by CEO Robert More’s great-grandfather in 1933 – Tinga and Narina lodges are top picks for their romantic riverside location; each enjoys an elevated position on the banks of the Sabie river.

The lodges are located within the 5,000ha Lion Sands private concession within the national park, which, though relatively small, is highly coveted, offering excellent game viewing. There is also the proximity to dinky Skukuza airport: within minutes of landing, you’re checked in, welcome drink in hand, taking in those languid river views.

Both resorts offer nine large suites. Tinga is more geared towards families, thanks to a communal pool, a dedicated playroom, an additional two-bedroom unit and a range of tailor-made experiences for children aged six to 11. Narina is only able to accommodate children above the age of 10, making it more the honeymooners’ choice.

The lodges boast a much more compact wine offering than the others mentioned here, but it’s well considered, showcasing South Africa’s most popular varieties. The More wine stewards undertook their first training trip to the Cape earlier this year with consultant Niehaus, who is also conducting regular tastings at the lodges.

Robert More credits chef Amori Burger – nowat the helm of the More Family Collection’s first standalone restaurant, Upper Union, at the Cape Cadogan Boutique Hotel in Cape Town – with turning the spotlight on wine. ‘When you are working in conservation as well as hospitality, there is just so much to focus on. Amori’s passion for good-quality wine pushed us to improve, and we are only too grateful to make this an integral part of the safari experience.’ From R26,995 pp per night, but look out for discounted rates if you book more than one More Family Collection stay.

How to get there

Fly direct from Cape Town or Johannesburg into Skukuza airport, within the national park. Transfers are included in the rate and take less than 10 minutes.

Dulini Moya

Sabi Sand Nature Reserve, Greater Kruger

One of only a few concessions that enjoy unencumbered access to both sides of the Sand river, 10,500ha Dulini is one of the prettiest concessions in Sabi Sand, in turn the most sought-after private reserve in the south of the Greater Kruger area. In parts, with sunlight dappled through branches shading the slow-flowing river and waterbuck cropping the grassy banks, it looks like a benign Wind in the Willows idyll – were it not for the crocs sunning themselves on the banks.

Dulini offers three very different lodge options – all are tremendous, but Moya, the original, is charmingly old-school, with six thatched suites opulently dressed in nostalgic-safari style. Dainty-hooved nyala nibble the lush indigenous lawns between open-air lounges, and the vaulted wine cellar offers a fabulous selection of well-displayed wines, which guests can explore with an app or, better still, with Neo Khoza, Moya’s sommelier.

After several trips to the Cape and the creation of an in-house wine club, wine appreciation has permeated the team. Most staff are able to advise on which of the 15 or so house wines available by the glass might suit your palate or plate. As Iain Garratt, the warm, hands-on owner comments: ‘Safari should be the perfect culmination of romance and adventure, and good wine very much part of an “indulgently inclusive” experience.’ Quite. From R26,800 pp per night.

How to get there

Fly directly into Skukuza from Johannesburg or Cape Town with Airlink. Dulini will have a vehicle waiting to make the 90-minute transfer by road to the lodge, exiting and re-entering Kruger.

Related articles

• Decanter’s Dream Destination: Delaire Graff Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa
• South Africa: 10 top wine hotels
• Stars of Stellenbosch: Top South African wines unveiled

Cycling for Chenin

Fancy getting to know South Africa’s most prolific white a little better, while keeping active? You’ll find the world’s largest number of Chenin Blanc vines in South Africa, rooted in almost 19,000ha of Cape soil. But while some winemakers (notably Ken Forrester) have ushered in a new respect for South Africa’s ‘work horse’ cultivar, it’s still a work in progress due to the unpredictability of its flavour profile. According to research, Chenin’s very versatility confuses otherwise loyal local wine lovers in South Africa.

In an attempt to address this, the local Chenin Blanc Association has created the Chenin Safari, an annual six-week mountain-biking event that encourages riders to tour Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl, Bot River and Robertson (sadly not Swartland or Elim) to coincide with #DrinkChenin Day, celebrated globally on the third weekend of June. (The date has been in place since 2014, when a group of American sommeliers and winemakers first raised a communal toast to the variety.)

The challenge is to see how many Chenin Safari stops you can visit over six weeks. Bearing in mind the #drinkchenin website advice – ‘We realise you cannot taste all the Chenins at all the stops and still ride’ – you need to stop at a minimum of six of the 17 participating wine farms in the time period to win yourself a free cycling shirt. The idea is to create a social media storm of posts and tags as you go. But unless you’re hoping to win a prize, it’s okay to just focus on the ride: a series of gorgeous loops on slopes braided with vineyards and fynbos (South Africa’s unique heathland), before stopping at a winery for a tasting to see how each Chenin expresses that specific terroir.

Tip If the idea of touring vineyards on two wheels appeals to you, then Franschhoek Cycles, conveniently located on the Franschhoek high street, provides e-bikes, maps and advice for those who like to lead, and guides for those who like to follow.

Cost For the Chenin Safari, registration fees and day permits may apply – check out the T&Cs on drinkchenin.co.za for details. Individual winery tastings charges will vary.

Challenging your perceptions

Apparently it was a Roman called Apicius in the 1st century AD who first coined the phrase ‘we eat with our eyes’. Clever chap. Millennia later, neuroscientists recognise that the brain processes visual cues faster than it does taste and smell – so inevitably looks do affect taste. Wine lovers are not immune: in 2001, PhD psychologist and winegrower Frédéric Brochet conducted an experiment at the University of Bordeaux where 54 oenology students were presented with a white wine stained red with an odourless dye and asked to describe the flavour. All 54 used typical red wine adjectives. But what about sound? Can music or white noise influence taste?

Nederburg’s Five Senses Food & Wine Experience explores how the various senses are linked by depriving you of two of them. After a welcome glass of Nederburg Cap Classique, you are seated at a table in the 19th-century Cape Dutch manor house, then blindfolded. A pair of wireless headphones is placed over your ears, filling your brain with selected sounds. The first of three mini-canapé courses, each one matched with a Nederburg wine, is then brought to the table. For each match, guided by hand, your server will help you to find your wine glass and fork, to smell, then taste. The table is cleared, and the blindfold and headphones are removed. The exact same combination of bite-sized dish and paired wine is then brought to the table for you to experience with all senses on board. Does depriving certain senses enhance or detract from taste perception? If so, how much? Book and find out!

Tip Come with an open mind

Address Sonstraal Road, Dal Josafat, Paarl 7646

Tel +27 (0)21 862 3104. Available twice a day (at 11.00 and 15.00) every day apart from Tuesdays. Booking essential

Cost R550pp (£27), minimum four people

Enjoying rare vintages

A memorable wine pairing is always a pleasure, but at Salsify there is added poignancy. Located in one of Cape Town’s oldest surviving buildings – an 18th-century guardhouse tucked into Camps Bay’s wooded glen – the restaurant’s tree- fringed ocean views are lure enough, but the real focus is what’s on the table: a superlative tasting menu, each edible artwork served with some of the Cape’s rarest wines. Aptly named the Gem Series pairing, these are either seriously limited editions or the last bottles of a given vintage truffle-hunted from top winemakers’ cellars.

It’s strangely affecting, knowing that your tasting is helping a particular vintage draw closer to its inevitable end – and it’s also a bold initiative. The pairings are constantly being updated due to the limited availability of the wines, requiring a resourceful and nimble sommelier – Victor Okolo has recently taken over from Samuel Ross. Offered in tandem is the Boutique pairing. If a certain wine on that list tickles your fancy then it is possible to ask to sample this alongside the Gem pairing, and compare notes on how they augment or contrast the flavours on the plate. Interactive and fun, the whole experience raises edifying discussions around South Africa’s varied terroir, reminiscing on the past while sipping on what was bottled in that year.

Tip When making an online booking (advised), ask to be seated in the Sea Room for an ocean view.

Address The Roundhouse, Roundhouse Road, Camps Bay, Cape Town 8005

Tel +27 (0)21 010 6444

Cost R3,050 (£147) per person for the Chef’s Menu with Gem Series pairing; R1,850pp (£89) for the Reduced Menu with Gem Series pairing

Zooming around in a vintage car

One of the most picturesque farms in postcard- pretty Franschhoek valley is the 50ha L’Ormarins, established at the foot of the Groot Drakenstein mountains in 1694, and under the custodianship of the Rupert family for the past five decades. Anton Rupert was a dedicated vintage car enthusiast, as is his son Johann, who built the Franschhoek Motor Museum on the estate in 2007 to house the largest collection of rare cars in Africa. He has more than 220, ranging in age from a 1898 Beeston motor tricycle to a 2016 Chevrolet Brute, as well as rarities, such as the 1956 Aston Martin DB2/4 MkII Touring Spyder with chassis number AM300/1162, one of three original Aston Martins sent to Carrozzeria Touring of Milan in 1955 to be fitted with what would become the Spyder’s distinctive Superleggera bodywork.

A revolving selection of 80 cars, on display in purpose-built exhibition halls, are kept in mint condition and are regularly driven. But few visitors know that you can, by prior arrangement, hop into whichever vehicles are running that day. If you’re in luck it will be one of the open-topped beauties, such as a 1915 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost or 1925 Bugatti Type 23. After tootling along, feeling like Toad in The Wind in the Willows, your driver will deposit you at the 19th-century manor house. You will be led through to the Anthonij Rupert tasting room, where rays of sunlight shine through large sash windows onto the glassware on the antique yellow wood table. There are several wine tasting menu choices here, so set aside a couple of hours. Then call it a day. A night, even.

Tip The selection of tasting options here can be discombobulating, but don’t miss L’Ormarins’ cool-climates and flagship reds. Or its Eau de Vie spirit range, distilled using an Armagnac still.

Address R45 road, nr Wemmershoek, Franschhoek 7690

To book Visits must be booked in advance. Book via the website, or contact Cartology to arrange this (and more) as part of your Franschhoek tour: cartologytravel.com; (UK mobile) 07716 095680

Cost Museum tour and classic car drive, R80pp (£4) each; wine flights from R60 (£3)

Becoming a winemaker for the day

For the ultimate wine lover’s activity…

i) Pull on an old pair of shorts or skirt and head out to Stellenrust Wine Estate, a few kilometres south of Stellenbosch town.

ii) Stroll through vineyards to fill a crate with whatever grape variety is ready to harvest. According to co-owner and viticulturist Kobus van der Westhuizen, the Pinotage is usually ripe in January, with Cabernet Franc or Cabernet Sauvignon grapes typically ripening towards March. If you are lucky, the Shiraz might be available throughout the three-month harvest season, in different blocks.

iii) Return to the Stellenrust gardens, where your grapes are upended into a halved wine barrel.

iv) After rinsing your feet, step into your barrel and commence stomping, working the grapes until they are completely squashed and juicy.

v) Rinse and proceed directly to the cellar for a blending challenge.

vi) After receiving your tasting glasses and a test tube, you’ll taste one of the Stellenrust blends blind.

vii) The challenge is to then match that blend, using the three varieties provided, guided by Stellenrust’s sommelier. They will also decide the winner, should you be of a competitive bent.

While you can take home a bottle from your blending challenge, a little more patience is required for your harvest activity. Your small-batch wine will be naturally fermented with stalks and skins for six months before spending 12 months in oak, safe in the hands of Stellenrust cellarmaster and co-owner Tertius Boshoff, before being bottled.

Tip To the north of Stellenbosch town, Muratie Wine Estate also offers wine stomping alongside wine tasting during its Harvest Festival, held every March (entrance R150/£7pp). Or practise your blending skills at Middelvlei Wine Estate, designed as an activity for two, with a blending kit to make one personalised bottle to take home, with additional bottles available as an optional extra (R300/£14pp).

Address Stellenrust Wine Estate, Stellenrust Road, Stellenbosch 7605

Tel +27 (0)21 880 2283

Cost Stellenrust ‘Make your own wine’ experience (must be booked in advance), available mid-January to end March, weekdays 10:00-15:00, R4,000 (£195) for one to 10 people (excludes courier cost for the wine). Blending Challenge, available all year, R1,800 (£88) for one to six people

Pairing up with a celebrity chef

Having done time in Michelin star restaurants, learning from the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing and Bryn Williams, chef Matt Manning decamped to Cape Town to open his first restaurant, Grub & Vine, in 2018. He then launched The Chef’s Studio, an industrial-chic demo kitchen in the loft above the restaurant, before expanding into adjacent spaces to open Culture Wine Bar. Culture is arguably the best-stocked wine bar in the city, offering not only a fine South African selection but an excellent choice of international wines too.

Manning prepares themed wine-paired demonstration dinners in The Chef’s Studio that change seasonally, but he also designs exclusive, highly bespoke wine-paired dinners, designed around your interests, be it traditional South African cuisine or a specific grape variety, carefully planned with one of his sommeliers.

Dinner comprises canapés, a bread course, starter, main and dessert. Manning will demonstrate how to make two courses – usually the starter and the main – that you then replicate at your own cooking station. Each course is enjoyed at the communal dining table, with Manning explaining the reasoning behind the particular choice of wine, usually from small-batch producers.

Tip The upstairs Wine Library hosts a regular Culture Club evening, intimate events with only 28 seats, focusing on a specific grape variety and region, and an opportunity to taste up to 16 wines that showcase it best.

Address 103 Bree Street, Cape Town 8001

Tel + 27 (0)87 1535 244

Cost Wine-paired demonstration dinners, from R945 (£42); bespoke dinners, from R1,250pp (£61). Culture Club, from R395 (£19)

Saddling up for a gourmet trail

There’s nothing quite like enjoying the fresh scent of the earth on horseback, serenaded by birds and surrounded by magnificent scenery. Located in the Drakenstein Valley, Cape Winelands Riding is a top outfit, with more than 40 horses, quality tack to give both rider and horse a comfortable ride, and a careful interview process to ensure that each rider is matched with the right horse, not only in terms of ability but also weight and personality.

As much as possible, riders are grouped according to ability (always working at the pace of the least experienced) and accompanied by guides that are knowledgeable about the environment, from identifying grape varieties and birds to providing a potted history of the area. The wine-tasting ride comprises a 3.5-hour jaunt to neighbouring Babylonstoren, famous for its gardens and fabulous new wine museum, to enjoy a small but excellent range of wines accompanied by platters of delectable fresh farm produce.

For serious foodie and oenophile riders, the five-day Cape Gourmet Wine Trail, led by owner Louis Geyer, is the one to book: a meandering ride through some of the Cape’s best wine estates (such as Plaisir de Merle, Niel Joubert, Marianne, Anura), with private tastings and/or meals with the winemakers. The next Cape Gourmet Wine Trail is scheduled for 17-22 April 2023.

Tip To set your own pace, book an exclusive wine- tasting ride – it costs only R100pp more than the price shown below. It is also possible to book the Gourmet Wine Trail as a private experience any time for a minimum of four people (costs vary).

Address Off R45 road, nr Klapmuts, Paarl 7670

Tel +27 (0)21 863 3852 / Mobile (0)82 924 6728

Cost Wine tasting ride, R1,050pp (£52). Cape Gourmet Wine Trail, R49, 950pp (£2,450)

Related articles

• South Africa’s black winemakers; building a future
• Regional profile: Cape West Coast
• Eight Cape West Coast wine producers to know

See Malu Lambert’s regional profile:Agulhas Wine Triangle: South Africa’s southernmost wines

This article contains 10 producer bios:

1. Black Oystercatcher Wines
2. David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner
3. Land’s End Wines
4. Lomond Wines
5. Olivedale Wines
6. Sijnn Wines
7. Strandveld Vineyards
8. The Giant Periwinkle
9. Trizanne Signature Wines
10. The Drift

Black Oystercatcher Wines

The Human family has farmed on Moddervlei, where the winery is housed, for generations. Owner and winemaker Dirk Human grew up here and knows the landscape intimately, knowledge that armed him to plant vines in 1998. A nature lover, he named his winery after the rare, local Black Oystercatcher birds. He specialises in Sauvignon Blanc, with some reserve wines which are only available at the farm, as well as Sémillon and Syrah.

David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner

Well-respected winemaker David Nieuwoudt of the altitudinous Cederburg Wines sources grapes from Elim for his Ghost Corner range, established in 2007. The wines consist of a Sémillon, a Sauvignon Blanc, The Bowline (a sauv-sem blend), a Pinot Noir as well as a Wild Ferment Sauvignon Blanc. The name Ghost Corner was inspired by the treacherous Cape Agulhas coastline where more than 130 ships have been shipwrecked through the ages.

Land’s End Wines

Land’s End was first established in 1996 by a group of legendary movers and shakers of the South African wine industry. It belonged to Hidden Valley Wines for a period, and latterly to Du Toitskloof Winery in Rawsonville, where the wines are produced using grapes sourced from Elim, Agulhas and the Cape South Coast. The labels show the historic candy-striped Cape Agulhas Lighthouse, whose light was first lit in 1849 and is still operating today.

Lomond Wines

Located on the slopes of the Ben Lomond Mountain, Lomond Wines was first launched in 2004 as a joint venture between Distell and Lomond Properties. In 2017 Geoff McIver and David Mostert bought the farm. The vineyards are planted on 18 different soils and the blocks are vinified separately. Lomond is a member of the Conservation Servitude with Fauna and Flora International and is a founding member of the Walker Bay Fynbos Conservancy.

Olivedale Wines

Owned in partnership with Belgian investors, winemaker Carl van Wijck steers this eccentric ship with co-winemakers Abe Beukes and ‎Jolene Calitz Le Roux. The estate is in Swellendam and the name refers to the area’s indigenous wild olive tree. While there is a serious lean towards natural winemaking, wines are made commercially too. Olivedale is home to the Triangle’s only Chardonnay as well as some niche South African varieties.

Sijnn Wines

This isolated Malgas winery makes small volumes of unfiltered, unfined wines. The cellar was built with the surrounding river stones, designed by owner David Trafford. It was while on holiday in the region in 2000 that David and Rita Trafford were inspired by the Portugal-like landscape. They’ve since planted ten hectares of Southern European and Mediterranean varieties and named it Sijnn, the word being Khoisan for riverbank. Charla Bosman is the winemaker.

Strandveld Vineyards

The most windswept and the most southerly vineyard in Africa, Strandveld is planted with a majority of Sauvignon Blanc, as well as Sémillon, Shiraz, Pinot Noir and Grenache Noir (with limited plantings of Viognier, Mourvèdre and Albariño). The farm was acquired in 2001 by a group of shareholders. Vineyards were planted in 2002 and winemaker Conrad Vlok joined in 2004. The old farm shed was converted into a wine cellar and Vlok made the first wine in 2005.

The Giant Periwinkle

Legal counsel by day, winemaker Pierre Rabie first established The Giant Periwinkle in his spare time. Now in partnership with friends Karen van Helden and Robert Stelzner, they acquired a property in Baardskeerdersbos with 3-hectares of vineyards, a cellar and tasting room. Rabie favours non-interventionist winemaking and has a deft hand with Sauvignon Blanc. The lighter reds are worth seeking out too. He has also started a brand called Koueberg Wines, bottled only in magnums.

Trizanne Signature Wines

Surf and sea loving Trizanne Barnard had enjoyed a successful career as a contract winemaker before going independent with her own eponymous brand. She has been sourcing grapes from Elim for over a decade and makes site-expressive Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Syrah, with a wild-card Barbera in the mix. Her other region of focus is the Swartland. She lives in Kommetjie, and makes her wines down the road in Noordhoek.

The Drift

Bruce Jack’s The Drift Farm is located in Napier. A well-known figure in the industry, he has been in the wine business for 30 years. At The Drift he crafts a small estate range that celebrates red wines with crunchy, savoury fruit and spice. In an exciting development, Jack and Francis Pratt have recently partnered to make the critically acclaimed ‘The Berrio’, a project they worked on together 21 years ago at one of the founding wineries of the area.

10 producers to know from Cape Agulhas and beyond

Related content

Cinsault: South Africa’s new star from old vines

Expert’s Choice: South African old-vine Chenin Blanc

Reyneke: South Africa’s holistic wine farm

It’s early morning on a clear but chilly day in May and the air above Elgin is filled with all sorts of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft spraying for fruit fly. In terms of plantings, this is apple and pear country first and wine country a distant second.

The valley, situated some 75km southeast of Cape Town and surrounded by mountains, has more than 6,400ha of apples, nearly 1,500ha of pears and less than 750ha of planted vineyard (down from perhaps 1,000ha a decade ago).

It’s not difficult to understand the focus on deciduous fruit rather than wine grapes. One hectare of vineyard yields 5-15 tonnes of grapes, while the equivalent of apples yields 100 tonnes. Revenue accruing from a hectare of vineyard is in the vicinity of R70,000- R120,000, whereas it starts at R300,000 for apples and goes all the way up to R700,000.

The first commercial apple orchards date from the early 1900s, whereas the modern era of wine farming only really began in 1986 when Paul Cluver Wine Estate planted Riesling vineyards (part of a joint venture with what was then Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery, later to be subsumed under South Africa’s largest liquor company, Distell).

Neil Ellis, meanwhile, was busy exploring a negociant model, acquiring grapes from across the winelands in order to make the best possible wines, and the area caught his eye. He was the first to release a wine officially demarcated as ‘Elgin’ in 1990.

The apple industry was to suffer a major decline in the 1990s as global production outstripped demand, due in large part to China entering the market, and this prompted a wave of new vineyard plantings. Apple prices soon recovered, however, somewhat retarding the development of the Elgin wine scene since then. Those who persist with wine farming still believe that they are on to a good thing. Elgin lays claim to being the coolest wine-growing area in South Africa, and in the most basic terms the wines do have a particular elegance about them.

Elgin wine region at 
a glance

Founded First vineyards of modern era planted in 1986; declared a ward 
of the greater Overberg district
 in 1990; declared 
a district in its 
own right in 2011

Growing conditions Higher altitude with vineyards planted at about 300m-500m above sea level, ocean proximity, specific cloud cover sequencing and 
a large diurnal 
range – cool nights allow the vines 
to resuscitate themselves, prolonging grape maturation

Annual rainfall 800mm-1,200mm
septemb

Vineyard area 739ha
septem

Structure 53 growers, 12 cellars

Main grapes Sauvignon Blanc 37%, Chardonnay 15%, Pinot Noir 14.5%, Syrah 8%

Scroll down for Christian’s top reds and whites to try from Elgin

Small beginnings

Does size really matter, though? Paul Cluver Jr, managing director of a major family farming business, its 1,600ha estate including some 82ha of vineyard, is not too worried at this point in the area’s history. ‘Elgin is 10,000ha in its entirety. The Côte de Nuits must be all of 1,000ha – you don’t necessarily need a lot of vineyard to make a big impression.’

The Cluver portfolio consists of Riesling, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir in various guises, but the focus is on the two Burgundian varieties. ‘Our USP is fine Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at a fraction of the price of Burgundy,’ he says. ‘The identifying character of Elgin is higher acidities and lower pHs – because of our cooler climate, we get phenolic ripeness without losing freshness.’

Cluver would like to see more producers make Chardonnay and Pinot Noir their focus because he feels that this would send a strong collective message to the world, but he concedes that it’s early days for the district in terms of being certain about what its strongest suit might be. Vineyards are scattered far and wide and differ significantly in terms of soils, aspect and proximity to the ocean. For all the critical acclaim that Chardonnay has gained in recent times, it does seem that Elgin can produce outstanding examples of just about any variety – bar perhaps late-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon, some examples tending to look a bit thin and weedy.

Another attraction of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to many growers is that theoretically neither has a price ceiling. The most-planted variety, white or red, in the valley is Sauvignon Blanc, and while the overall quality is high, there is a resignation that it will never command much of a premium, at least when made in an unwooded style. A few cellars are experimenting with Blanc Fumé and Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blends with impressive results, but all reports are that such wines don’t have much of a popular following.

Healthy competition

If vineyards are to compete with apple orchards, then Elgin is compelled to position itself as a premium growing area and here the age of vines becomes important. More mature vines provide more complete grapes, resulting in wines of greater depth and detail. Unfortunately, however, in the rush to plant that occurred in the early 2000s, plenty of sub-standard material went into the ground, and a variety of viticultural problems are now manifesting themselves precisely when these vines should be coming into their own.

Elgin wine producers are also subject to significant non-agricultural pressures. For one thing, the district has become something of a social unrest hotspot as the ongoing process of rural to urban migration plays out, and there are regular labour disputes. For another, wildfires are becoming a more regular occurrence, often damaging vineyards. Happily, climate change is seen as having less impact in the immediate future than it might in other wine-growing areas.

So what are the prospects for Elgin going forward? Paul Wallace, long-serving consultant viticulturist in the area, is not inclined to become disconsolate.

‘We’re still scratching the surface in Elgin,’ he says. ‘We’ve already found out that we’re good at Chardonnay, but there are other varieties that can do very, very well. 
I’ve been at this for 20 years and I’m still learning – why this and why not that.’

You feel Wallace has a point: in a relatively short space of time, and from a very small base, this district is already producing some of South Africa’s most compelling wines. The future is bright. Probably quite chilly, but bright.

The best Elgin whites and reds to try:

Elgin: 10 names to know

Almenkerk

Owned by the Belgian/Dutch family van Almenkerk. Patriarch Joep retired to South Africa in the early 2000s and convinced son Joris and his partner Natalie to undertake wine farming. They acquired an apple farm, converting it to vineyards and building a 300-tonne capacity cellar. This facility is also used 
by smaller producers in the area.

Elgin Ridge

Brian and Marion Smith sold their IT business based in southwest London at the end of 2006 and bought a small property in Elgin in April 2007. Today their 6.5ha of vineyard are certified biodynamic – a compost preparation programme ensures high humus levels in the soils, while the resident ducks take care of pest control.

Highlands Road

Port Elizabeth attorney Michael White acquired this property in 2004, appointing the talented Vanessa Simkiss as winemaker in 2015. Some 9ha of vineyard are planted to Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Pinot Noir and Shiraz, but it is the Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend known as Sine Cera that has most impressed to date. A small restaurant boasts views across the dam.

Iona

Back in 1997, when the Elgin wine scene was comparatively underdeveloped, former engineer Andrew Gunn acquired a run-down apple farm surrounded by the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve and forestry plantations and converted it to vineyard. Today, Iona has one of the most accomplished portfolios of wines in the district, a recent addition being two so-called Monopole Series Chardonnays.

Oak Valley

Founded in 1898 by Sir Antonie Viljoen, 
a medical doctor who graduated from Edinburgh University in Scotland, the 1,600ha property is currently run by his great-great-grandson Christopher, with wine a small but important part of a high-quality agribusiness that also includes cut flowers, cattle and pigs.

Paul Cluver Estate Wines

A 2,200ha property in the Cluver family since 1896, wine currently forming part of a farming business that incorporates apple and pear orchards, a Hereford stud and eco-tourism activities, including amphitheatre concerts and mountain biking trails. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir under the top-end Seven Flags label are South African benchmarks.

Richard Kershaw Wines

British-born Richard Kershaw MW has been active as a winemaker in South Africa for some 20 years, establishing his own label in 2012. The focus is mostly is on Elgin, due to its cool climate. Kershaw is nothing if not academically minded and his approach to winemaking is fastidious as he seeks to understand how site and clone combine to best effect.

Shannon Vineyards

In addition to apples and pears, James Downes also farms some 12ha of vineyard on this family-owned property on the banks of the Palmiet River. Downes is known for his meticulous viticulture, and Shannon Vineyards sells grapes to a number of leading producers, but its own-label wines made since 2007 by Gordon and Nadia Newton Johnson in Hemel-en-Aarde are also highly acclaimed.

Spioenkop

Koen Roose imported South African wine into Belgium, but he always had his heart set on winemaking and learned on the job before acquiring a property in Elgin in the mid-2000s. Something of a maverick, Roose works with unirrigated vineyards – this is unusual for the area, but he feels it gives a more authentic expression of site. He also champions Chenin Blanc and Pinotage, also not common to Elgin.

Vrede en Lust

Dana Buys, highly successful in IT, first bought this property in Paarl in the 1990s, but realising the potential of Elgin to provide high-quality grapes, he acquired a farm called Casey’s Ridge in that district in 2005. Some 60ha are now under vine, much of the fruit going into experimental bottlings under the Artisan Range label.

Christian Eedes is a wine journalist, writer and judge, as well as editor of www.winemag.co.za

You may also like:

Top South African white wines

The Chenin Blanc renaissance? Loire vs South Africa

Must-try Sauvignon Blanc wines

Strong bidding during the AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction in South Africa saw total sales rise by 50% on the previous year, with Vrede en Lust, Saxenburg and Paul Cluver wines among the top lots.

Auctioneer Iain Banner in full flow at the AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction last weekend

Total sales from the 37 lots reached 10.56m South African rand ($910,000), said the auction’s organisers. Last year’s sale fetched 7m rand from 40 lots.

Similar to several other auctions of its kind, such as the annual Naples Winter Wine Festival auction in Florida, many of the lots included luxury travel and accommodation alongside fine wines.

But, the result is a promising sign for those seeking to improve the image of South Africa as a fine wine producer.

Top lot in the auction included 60 bottles of wines from family-owned Vrede en Lust estate in Franschhoek.

The winning bidder paid 800,000 rand for the lot, which also included eight return, business class flights from Johannesburg to the Seychelles and a three-day cruise on a brand new Powercat, with a private chef.

The second best-selling lot fetched 600,000 rand and included two signed magnums from South Africa’s Saxenburg Estate and Italy’s Tenuta del Trinoro, plus lunch at Saxenburg and week-long villa stay for four guests near to the Tuscan winey.

Close behind was ‘The Godfather Lot’, which sold for 550,000 rand and included 60 bottles of Paul Cluver Pinot Noir blended by group winemaker Andries Burger, as well as a week-long stay in an 18th century chateau in France’s Loire Valley.

All proceeds from the AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction will go to education charities in South Africa’s Western Cape.

Related Content:

• Auctions helping South Africa break through ‘glass ceiling’
• Decanter travel guide: Franschhoek, South Africa
• South African Syrah: panel tasting results

Written by Chris Mercer

Fiona Beckett visits the Cape Winelands' winners of the Best of Wine Tourism awards and revels in the region's heavenly offerings of food, art, architecture and nature...

There’s apparently a syndrome called Cape Town comedown: the deflated feeling you get after returning from a trip to South Africa. Certainly landing there in April after a seemingly endless winter seemed like being transported to some kind of heaven – their autumn was far warmer and sunnier than our spring. (Tempting though it might sound, avoid the high season – and high prices – of December, January and February. Insiders say March/April is the best time to enjoy the region.)

Since my last trip, three years previously, the Cape Winelands in the Western Cape province seemed to have come on in leaps and bounds. Where it was once a question of walking into a tasting room and eating some admittedly very delicious food, the wineries were now offering so much more in the way of visitor experiences: stunning architecture, art, nature trails, even – in the case of the newly opened Spice Route visitor centre – partnerships with other local businesses, including a brewery and a chocolate factory. It’s easy to see why the region qualifies as one of the great wine capitals, and why there’s such hot competition for the Best of Wine Tourism awards.

• See the Cape Town Best of Tourism winners here

Rich in history and culture

My first port of call was the historic estate of la Motte, which won the overall title of wine tourism champion for ticking practically every box, skilfully combining the old and the new. you could easily spend a day here, starting with a Winelands tea (and straw wine), an experience that lends a whole new meaning to the idea of elevenses, and ending up with dinner at the innovative pierneef à la Motte, named after the early 20th century landscape artist. There’s a unique collection of his paintings, and a series of changing exhibitions.

The food, which draws on traditional Cape Dutch cuisine for inspiration, is overseen by Hanneli Rupert-Koegelenberg, the daughter of the well known and late South African industrialist Dr Anton Rupert, and given a modern twist by chef Chris Erasmus, who has spent time at Noma.

Everything is perfectly restored: the manor house, built in 1751; the old cellar, built in 1782 and now used for concerts (Rupert-Koegelenberg is an acclaimed mezzo-soprano); and the old watermill that still produces stone-ground bread for the kitchen and gift shop. you can take a historic walk round the buildings on Wednesday mornings, but try and see the estate, as I did, in the early evening with the sun slanting, golden, through the trees. The light in the Franschhoek Valley is incredible.

Rupert was a noted conservationist, a tradition that has been built on by the current generation, who have created an extensive protea garden and organic vegetable garden, and cultivated the mountain area above the estate. I was disappointed when a rare spot of rain scotched my plan to take an early morning walk up the hiking trail, though possibly this was a blessing given the size of my dinner the night before (the trail requires a ‘fair degree of fitness’, according to the website).

La Motte also owns nearby leopard’s leap, a winery you might be inclined to disregard given the low cost of the wines, but it has created a relaxed atmosphere around a modern buffet-style restaurant and rotisserie that would be great for families visiting with children, as well as a cookery school and kitchen shop. You can also see an interactive screen projected on the wall that shows where leopards have been spotted (fortunately not too many of them, or too near). Over the road are the gallery and gardens of Grande Provence, where they almost forgot to let me taste their wine, so keen were they to show off their art collection, which contains some of the best contemporary South African art, sculpture and ceramics. They use the gallery for tastings, and it must be one of the few places where you can taste against the background of a huge, wall-wide collage, almost as if you were in a studio.

Some of the buildings too are striking. The award for architecture went to Waterkloof in Somerset West, where the dramatic glass-walled restaurant and ‘cellar in the sky’ overlooks False Bay, a striking contrast to the artisanal practices of the biodynamically run estate, where horses are still used to plough the vineyards.

There are similarly dramatic buildings at Tokara. This award-winning winery, restaurant and cellar has been established for a while, and the newer delicatessen – whose claim to be child- friendly is borne out by a playful, upside-down wooden man that dominates the entrance – is part of an imaginative play area and sculpture garden. You can see how one winery vies with another to have the best facilities.

Vineyards with a view

If you can drag yourself away from the visitor centres, there are plenty of opportunities to get into the vineyards. At Waterford we went on a wine safari that involved juddering in a Land Rover up the foothills of the Helderberg. We drank Kevin Arnold’s 2004 The Jem on a platform overlooking the vineyards, with his patient dog, who had kept pace with the car, panting at our feet. We were also compensated for a shower by one of the most beautiful rainbows I’ve ever seen. It’s that kind of experience that preserves a wine in your memory.

At Avondale, a beautiful, sustainably run farm in the Paarl Valley, we had a similar experience before being treated to a show-stopping performance from the farm’s resident ducks, which waddle out of their ‘duck mobile’ to forage for snails that would otherwise damage the vines. (Avondale was one of the first to gain the Biodiversity in Wine certificate.)

Then there’s Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick, a seasoned old hand at creating spectacular tourist experiences. I can remember being taken up to the highest point of his vineyards 10 years or so ago and watching the most dramatic sunset, blazing red against the mountains. Now you can have a similar experience on horseback – or stay closer to the winery with a private picnic pod for two or a family group. A day bed for 15 is planned for one of them, apparently.

Fruits of the earth

More sedate experiences are on offer for gardening aficionados. If you’re interested in trees you should definitely visit the gorgeous park and forest of Vergelegen, which was created by botanist and forester Willem Adriaan van der Stel in the early 18th century. It contains the oldest oak tree in South Africa, the only white mulberry tree outside southern China, and a collection of camphor trees, after which the classy restaurant takes its name. And I was repeatedly tipped off about Babylonstoren, an amazing farm, fruit and vegetable garden in the Drakenstein Valley, where you’re encouraged not only to pick what you like, but also help plant or prune. It’s hard to imagine the scale – there are eight acres, divided into citrus orchards, herbs, salads – you need a day to do it justice. You can even stay in the whitewashed former workers’ cottages, which feature a well- equipped kitchen. The restaurant, Babel, and beautifully designed farm shop supply other ingredients you might need such as bread, eggs and cheese, and even homemade cordials if you’re taking a temporary break from the wine.

At the other end of the scale, there’s the luxury accommodation of Delaire Graff Estate, owned by billionaire businessman and art collector Laurence Graff and whose suites have their own infinity pools overlooking the vineyards. (The temptation to take a skinny dip was just too great to resist.)

Sophisticated pairings

Compared to these innovative experiences, the fact that most of these wineries have world-class restaurants seems unremarkable. But here too the Winelands have made extraordinary progress, perfecting simple, sophisticated food where technique doesn’t get in the way of first-class, local ingredients. Tokara won the prize for best winery restaurant, but I also had spectacular meals – and wine-pairing experiences – at Pierneef à La Motte, Waterkloof, Rust en Vrede and Camphor. The wine lists too have become far more comprehensive, ranging well beyond the farms’ own fare. Just look at Rust en Vrede’s Champagne list for a start.

Estates like Creation are also using their kitchens for food and wine matching experiences – and La Motte’s selection of wine-pairing canapés won it the prize for an innovative wine tourism experience. (All were spot on, but I can particularly recommend the wild mushroom and polenta tart with La Motte’s Pinot Noir, and the chorizo empanadita with the Syrah.) Other wineries offer tastings based on a single ingredient: chocolate in the case of Waterford and Spice Route, and cheese at Fairview.

You really don’t have to look very far to see why the standard of South African wine tourism is as high as it is. If you were a successful business owner with an ambition to go into wine, it’s unbeatable as a place to spend your hard-earned cash: the BBW (billionaire buys winery) syndrome, as Mike Warwick nicely puts it. There is space, there is labour, there is history – projects are managed by well-travelled men and women accustomed to being the best in their field. What is striking is the good taste with which practically everything is executed.

But perhaps the most interesting thing I noticed was that the majority black population is present not just as staff, but visitors too: a new professional black middle class is beginning to come down from Johannesburg and Pretoria to sample wine country for itself. That was the most significant change from my last visit, and perhaps the most encouraging one for the future.

For more on the category winners, visit the Cape Winelands page of the Best of Wine Tourism website, greatwinecapitals.com. Wine and Only, wineandonly.com, also has information on what other wineries have to offer, while Go Cape, www.gocape.co.za, arranges private tours of the Winelands and can arrange car hire.

Written by Fiona Beckett

Next page

Fiona Beckett visits the Cape Winelands' winners of the Best of Wine Tourism awards and revels in the region's heavenly offerings of food, art, architecture and nature...

Cape Town: Best of Wine Tourism winners

Overall Champion

LaMotte, Franschhoek 1 la-motte.com

Accommodation

Grand Dédale, Wellington 12 granddedale.com

Architecture & Landscapes

Waterkloof, Somerset West 4 waterkloofwines.co.za

Arts & Culture

Grande Provence, Franschhoek 3 grandeprovence.co.za

Innovative Wine Tourism Experiences Creation

Hemel-en-Aarde 13 creationwines.com

Sustainable Wine Tourism Practices

La Motte (see above) 1

Wine Tourism Restaurant

Tokara Restaurant, Stellenbosch 5 tokara.co.za

Wine Tourism Services

Waterford, Stellenbosch 6 waterfordestate.co.za

Previous page