Stellenbosch & Franschhoek
Just an hour inland from Cape Town the city gives way to the Cape Winelands, a sweep of green valleys folded between dramatic mountain ranges where the vines have grown for more than three centuries. This is the oldest wine country in the southern hemisphere, first planted by Dutch settlers and French Huguenots, and it remains one of the most beautiful places on earth to taste a glass of wine. The drive out from the coast is short and the change is complete: the ocean light gives way to oak-lined avenues, whitewashed gables and rows of vines running up to the foot of the peaks.
The two valleys at the heart of it are Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, each a world of its own. Stellenbosch is a graceful old university town of cafes and galleries, ringed by hundreds of estates and home to the country's most respected wine school. Franschhoek, the French Corner settled by the Huguenots, is smaller and more intimate, a single lush valley closed in by mountains and lined with some of the finest restaurants in South Africa. A little closer to the city, the historic vineyards of Constantia make an easy half-day for those short on time.
What makes a day here so memorable is the pairing of the wine with the setting. You taste in the cool of a Cape Dutch cellar or on a sunlit terrace, the mountains rising beyond the vines, and then you settle in for a long, unhurried lunch at an estate table while the afternoon drifts by. We build your days around the estates and the kitchens we love, arrange a private driver or the hop-on Franschhoek wine tram so no one has to watch the glass, and book the tastings and tables ahead so the whole day unfolds at an easy pace.
