Pinotage

One thing a visitor of the Western Cape should definitely have on its to-do list is wine tasting. This is not only my personal judgement, the tasting is an activity approved and suggested by several tourist guides to South Africa. They find it essential and dedicate at least a few pages to describe what a unique experience each Capetonian winery offers and how each of them deserves attention of the thirsty visitors, both local and foreign.

Just outside the city of Cape Town, the coastal rocky landscape transforms into a land of vineyards. Rolling over the hills and valleys with only individual wine estates interrupting the grapevine lines and little historical towns like Franschoek nested between the mountains, they reach further than the eye can see.

After reading through a thick brochure representing each wine estate as absolutely necessary to visit, we picked two that we found most intriguing and most different. Both were presenting their wine collection in a very professional way, using sophisticated vocabulary (most of which we didn’t understand) and offering the wines with a selection of chocolates, cheeses and salamis. In turn, we posed questions about the grape shapes, barrel colours and estate maintenance. We swirled the wine, judged the colour, sniffed it and took a sip, discussed the aftertaste and rated it like professional wine tasters.

Wines were amazing – even though most of them were mixtures of three, four or even five different grape sorts. I was especially impressed by Pinotage – rich and smoky, with notes of tropical fruit. A real jewel among South African wines.

After we couldn’t fit any more bottles in the car trunk, we continued the journey over the mountains, back to the eastern coastline and towards the city. The main arterial towards Cape Town was constructed on a sandy beach, with the ocean almost spilling over the road. White sand dunes with tufts of lush green grass and famous fynbos, and seagulls foraging for crabs among them. However, the view offered by the opposite side was highly contrasting.

Shanty town made of plastic, metal and cardboard, a mesh of electricity wires above it and swirls of smoke rising from burning rubbish piles. People slowly moving in the shadows of the sheds and avoiding laundry lines stretched across the roads, living on a minimal income, earned only once a year by doing some kind of seasonal job. One like harvesting wine grapes...

And Pinotage suddenly got a darker tone of redness.