Waterford Estate

The highlight of living in Cape Town is not the mountain, as some would lead you to believe. It is not the sea which is too cold in which to swim. It is not even the way it conveniently manages to keep poor people out of the lines of vision of rich people. It is undoubtedly its proximity to the Cape Winelands – as good a reason to live there as any. In fact, if I were to start a city I would ensure that there was a plethora of possible vineyard sites within spitting distance beforehand.

While living in Cape Town, I visited plenty of farms in and around Paarl, Franschhoek and Stellebosch, and they are all so good that it became tricky for any one of them to stand out. Until I won a prize at a press conference to spend a night at Waterford Estate (Note: I was/am under absolutely no obligation to write about it).

It is one of the few vineyards in Stellenbosch at which one can spend the night in a large, beautifully furnished room on the second floor of its main building. Breakfast and six or seven bottles of wine are provided and the view out of the bedroom is so wide guests can see sunrise and sunset from the bed.

The lounge - contemporary decoration (apologies for it being out of focus).

The eye-watering view out of the bedroom window.

What the vineyards do offer, generally, is beauty, and Waterford Estate doesn’t disappoint. Although I arrived in a crap mood because the sign for the vineyard had fallen down and I’d covered most of the roads of the Western Cape finding it, the way it was set up from the gate to where guests park was incredible. I could describe it, but rather just look at these.

Both pics are of the main building at Waterford Estate. This is what is immediately presented to all visitors here. Pretty damn decent, I'd say.

That being said, prettiness is not something which necessarily differentiates one farm from another - you’ll rarely see an ugly one. There are two stark criteria which push Waterford Estate’s notability ahead of most others.

The first is the idea of a wine safari. I am not sure of other farms do this, but Waterford boast a concept in which you taste the wine while sitting sitting by the orchard in which (at least some of) its grapes were grown. Our guide (whose name escapes me) was involved in the whole wine production process from seed-planting right through to putting the cork in the bottle, so we were given a thorough explanation on every part of the farm which we drove through (and drank near). We were regaled with tales of how crops had been affected by massive winds and fires, how grapes are selected, how the quality is maintained and so on. All the while in a stunning setting.

This is a proper wine safari - this truck having arrived at Waterford for safari purposes from Singita.

The highlight of the safari was sampling Waterford’s signature wine, The Jem. This creation of this wine was a nine-year process with a plethora of concoctions attempted before Kevin Arnold, cellar master, and his team gave it the ok. We sampled this sitting on a hill with a view that stretched nearly the whole way to Cape Town.

The wines on the safari were matched with food – we sampled olives and nuts with the white wines and droewors and biltong with the reds. It all paired up beautifully, but it post-safari that Waterford surprised us again.

Three of Waterford's top red wines: a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and it's premier product, The Jem.

I am sure most of you who have traversed wine country will have sampled the nectar alongside food. Well, Waterford Estate pairs up wines with chocolate. Usually putting two things people like together is a decent recipe for popularity. Well, how’s about two things people absolutely adore? The secret is in the high-quality chocolate provided, flavoured beautifully. A deep dark chocolate, a brown rose-water flavour and a milk chocolate accompanied with four of Waterford’s high-quality wines. I suppose the message is that wine is not just a meal accompaniment, it is a leisure pursuit too – not something wine-producing countries like South Africa need to know, but the rest of the world could be taught a thing or two.

The chocolate-pairings and the wine safari do make Waterford stand out within the region. However, and most importantly, it still provides the main top-quality aspect that one would expect anyway: superb, well-thought out wines.

It certainly gets my stamp of approval.

This is a Simon travel pointer.

1928km and still not even close

The dead straight roads of the empty Northern Cape. Pic by Simon Williamson.

Well it's been a bloody long trip, but we're finally in Johannesburg after leaving Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon. We broke the trip up into four parts, the first being from Cape Town all the way to Paternoster - all of 150 km. We drove around for a bit there looking for a decent place to stay and came across some spot called Paternoster Dunes, run by one of the most peculiar men of all time. He made it into our good books, though, as the look of severe disappointment on our faces once we'd heard the price earned us a fat discount.

The next day we shot up to Springbok - the idea being that we wanted to use it as the base for exploring Namaqualand - something my grandfather used to do and it always stuck in my mind to pursue one day. Well, because there was no rain this winter, there were no flowers. We also visited Augrabies which only had a tiny stream of water bustling over it, unlike the cascading sloshing I'd seen in pictures. Later in the trip we headed up to Mafikeng as well to see an Anglo-Boer war museum and it was closed. So from the outside it looked like an unspectacular trip, but for the two of us who'd never been through the top of the Northern Cape, it was pretty damn spectacular.

Our trip up the West Coast on a beltingly hot day - we drove about 530km - was our introduction to the Northern Cape as we watched the famed white sand turn Kalahari red. Springbok initially presented a craphole in the middle of nowhere until we found a smart little B&B right in town. We went out to dinner at Springbok's (only) best grillhouse that night and realised the charm this little nook carries. I ate a kilogram of steak and so my name goes up on the wall of the restaurant - Springbok will remember Simon forever - and we retired to the bar in the restaurant for a few whiskies to wash down our meal. It was to choruses from the other patrons in the bar of the k-word intermingled with laughter that reminded me - not that I needed it - that there is a lot of South Africa outside the places I live, and a lot more South Africans other than the ones I know. Pretty sad.

The two of us with Augrabies in the background. Pic by Mike McClelland.

Day three was an epic journey across almost the entire Northern Cape, from Springbok all the way to Kuruman which is near the Northern Cape-North West border. I have driven through the Karoo numerous times, but the Kalahari is a far better example of wide-open spaces. There is literally nothing in the way of your view. Perhaps a rocky outcrop here, the odd small tree there, and loads and loads of nothingness. In fact, there is such a shortage of trees that the weavers in the area build their nests on the telephone poles which stride along the highway. The other surprise was our trip through Upington which I thought was a decent-sized town - the actioned part of the Northern Cape. Well, while it is large enough to be notable, it's half the size of Pietermaritzburg and twice as sleepy. Kuruman is a complete dump (hosting the rudest population of anywhere I have ever) been with the only attraction in town being The Eye of Kuruman, a spring which allegedly pumps out 20-odd million litres of crystal clear water per day. We stopped to see it and watched a little trickle built to look like a waterfall - creating the effect of a tiny waterfall. 20-million litres my arse. If I'd pissed in the fountain it would have doubled the amount of water in it.



Our B&B in Kuruman was an inspired choice though and was everything that Kuruman wasn't - it contained FRIENDLY PEOPLE. We ended up drinking R180 worth of whiskey at the bar (doesn't sound like much, but it cost R9 a shot) and within hours we had new friends-for-life in Kuruman.

Our last day saw us set off for Joburg, but via Mafikeng which was only about 60km out of our way. We didn't stay long because the place we wanted to see was shut so we decided to go and see the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg instead. We got bored of that idea about 100km into the trip and just set the GPS to take us to Rivonia. This detoured us through Lichtenburg, with the GPS attempting to get us down a non-existent highway. Sometimes technology is a curse, and poor Sam (my GPS' name) dealt with a verbal rant from me, heavily decorated with words which shall not be repeated here. Eventually he sorted himself out and guided us into Joburg via the West Rand - or somewhere around there. I'm from the northern suburbs and therefore retain the right to not have to know anything outside the area demarcated by Dainfern, Monte Casino, Witkoppen Road and Rivonia Road, with occasional trips to visit the kugels in Sandton City.

The car held up, we held up, and bar Mike having to squeeze his bladder with an internal clamp by the end, the trip in was pretty plain sailing. It was grand to see parts of the country we hadn't seen before, to see the utter expanse of the Northern Cape after climbing the stunning West Coast. Great to feel proper heat again which sated my resentment of the weather in CT just before we left while the rest of the country was celebrating summer.

It's off to Hong Kong on Wednesday evening. We're pretty set, we think. It seems like just the other day I started preparing to leave Cape Town. The time has flown like a concorde on biofuel (this simile is relevant for our greenie Cape Town friends).

Thank you Cape Town for a great year. Thank you Joburg for sending us off.

Hello, Hong Kong!

Cheers folks,
Simon.