We all woke this morning in our respective accommodations and headed to my parents cottage for a group breakfast. Steve, Sharon, Emma, Paul and Duncan were aiming to leave just after breakfast and drive to Cape Town for a day of shopping and last minute sight-seeing. Duncan was once again in charge of the coffee making while my parents made the food for us all. It was brilliant to be able to have one last gathering to discuss the past week and future plans for everyone. I'm not sure when next we will be able to gather that many members of our families together at the same time (if ever) so we all started to realise what a special week it had been.
Once we had all enjoyed our fill of bacon and eggs, the cottage was cleaned up and the cars were packed with bags for everyone's departure. the last words we heard from Sharon's disembodied voice as they drove down the pear trees was "thank you for marrying our son!" which we had a good giggle at :D Mandy had come over earlier in the day to tell us about a wine festival that was happening in the vineyards nearby, which Mum, Chris, Dan and I set off to enjoy. Mum very kindly agreed to be our designated driver for the day and Chris took his own car with as he would set off for the airport from the road at around 2pm.
We left at around 11:30 and drove to the first vineyard called Bersig. The ticket was R60 for the festival, you got a free glass and the pass was valid from the Friday to the Sunday. I do wish we had been able to stay an extra day do we could fit in the rest of the vineyards, it was an amazing day! There was a port at Bersig that we both particularly enjoyed, so needless to say we bought one for about R60. Our next stop was a vineyard called Botha, where there was very little available parking as there was a rugby match next door. I have always wondered why wine grape varieties never seem to include the grapes that we enjoy from a supermarket or that make grape juice. Well I have finally found two wines made from those grapes! The name of the grapes that make a delicious Ceres juice is hanepoort, and out of it they make an amazing dessert type wine called jeripko! There is a red version of the dessert wine, as hanepoort grapes are the white grapes.
After buying one of each the red and white jeripkos for us and one red for mum we set off for the next stop on the map, Bassberg. When we got there we found it to be much more of a festival than the previous places, there was a tent with music, some stalls selling food and everyone outside having a great time! The guard at the gate tried to make Mum buy a festival ticket just because she was going in to the compound, but we argued with him as she was not drinking the wine. He gave in and we did not need to buy one, yay! Mum and I bought some of the delicious cheese that Waverley Hills uses on their pasta in the tasting menu, and Dan and I opted for steak sandwiches for lunch, mine with both monkey gland and mushroom sauce as I couldn't decide!
Chris decided to make this his last stop on the tour as it was heading towards 2pm and he needed to get to Cape Town for his flight later. Then there were three!! The next stop on our tour did not actually have a wine tasting section, but it did have some lovely crafts and food that we ogled over, before driving to the next stop, Jason's Hill. It was amazingly stunning in their part of the valley, the mountains were just exquisite! They didn't have any of the sweeter wines we seem to have become partial to today, so we didn't stay there for very long. Slanghoek, our next stop was one of my favourite stops because mum and I bought some of their soft serve ice cream! Dan and I tried the dessert wines inside and shared some with mum who was really enjoying them. We bought two there, a dark red jeripko and a lighter red muscadel jeripko.
The next vineyard on the tour was Opstal, and we decided to make it our last stop. I was thoroughly excited when I read the pamphlet that said there was sushi at Opstal, but as we walked in it said that it ended at 3pm :( Their wines were Ok, but none were special enough to buy. The view from the grass outside was spectacular! There were mountains towering above us with vines as far as the eye could see, I couldn't imagine anywhere more beautiful to work. As we walked around the stores outside we spotted the sushi one, which hadn't ended yet as it was really popular! Dan and I each had a 15 piece sushi plate and mum had a 6 piece one. Jenny even kept running back inside to get more wine to go with the sushi.
Once we finished our food we decided it was time to head home. Because we had food so recently we procrastinated packing the car by sitting around the fire and enjoying some more drinks. Once we had a few we were in no mood to pack our bags and decided to leave the packing for the morning.
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