28 March (Day 12)

We did tons of wine tasting today. We met at 9:30am because the vineyards open at 10. We started at Warwick, where we saw a cool cup that two people can drink from. There’s a hokey story that goes with it: There was a princess who felt in love with a silversmith, but her father wouldn’t let them get married. The princess wouldn’t eat because she was so upset, so the king said that if the silversmith could create a cup that two people could drink from at the same time without spilling, he could marry the princess. Now Warwick sells these cups that are really cool, but also over $200USD! Crazy! The wine was good, but a little bit pricey so instead I bought some olive oil there.

Next up was Fairview, which was my favorite of the vineyards. Fairview is the home of the Goats Do Roam line of wines, and they have this cool silo-type building with a spiral ramp all around that goats can climb up on. It’s really cool, but pictures will be better than words. The woman conducting our tasting told us that when they first started growing their grapes, they would let the goats out into the vineyards. The goats would choose to eat the sweetest grapes, and those were then the grapes they would harvest. They don’t do that anymore, though. We tasted a bunch of wine there that we all really good, and we did a wine and cheese tasting with the wines that they cheese that they make at their dairy. There was goats cheese with herbs, goats cheese with pepper, a bleu and brie hybrid that was interesting, a bleu and a brie. They were delicious. They also sold breads on the grounds, so I bought this delicious seed loaf. And I bought a Pinotage-Vigonnier blend that we tried. Both grape varieties are really popular in South Africa, but Fairview was the first (only?) vineyard to put out a blend.

For lunch we went to a chain called Spur. It’s a basic burger restaurant, but we were definitely ready to eat after all of our wine tasting.

After lunch we went to our last vineyard. Sandy picked Diemersfontein because they have a Pinotage that has flavors of chocolate and coffee. It was really interesting and I may buy a bottle later to take home. It’s a really distinct coffee flavor that comes from the barrels they age it in. Instead I bought a rose. They had overproduced because an order was placed and then cancelled, so they were selling their rose for 10 rand, which is just over $1US. I bought two bottles, as did everyone on our trip but Kristina, who bought a case. The wine was actually pretty good, it was just that they needed to sell it because they made too much. I really can’t argue with $1 wine!

Phoebe and the girls were gone overnight in Cape Town. They had friends from Australia and the US who were coming into town and so they rented a hotel room and spent the night with them. We took full advantage of the empty house and invited everyone over to the pool after tasting. Jeff and Anna were the only two bold enough to actually go swimming since our pool is freezing. Lutz the crazy dog trapped Anna in the pool, though. When she tried to get out he jumped on her and knocked her down. I guess she has a pretty gnarly bruise on her butt, and I had to take her upstairs and clean up a nice scratch from his claws. I felt pretty bad about it.

Then we all played Screw Your Neighbor, which Heather had to teach most of us. I did pretty well, I think. It was fun because we had a big group. There were a few of us whose families weren’t around for dinner so we called Sandy to recommend someplace to get pizza. She said there’s a restaurant called Col’Cacchio that she’d heard good things about, so we went to check it out. We had a party of eight so we had to wait for them to put together a table for us, but it was worth it. I ordered a pizza with smoked mozzarella, sundried tomato, and caramelized onions. Heather was impressive, too; she got spinach, feta, and avocado. Jeff wins the award for weirdest, though. It’s a common flavor in South Africa, but in the states I think there are few people who would be interested in banana and bacon pizza. I tried it, but since I’m not a big fan of bananas I wasn’t too impressed. I’ll eat pretty much anything with bacon, though.

We happened to be at the restaurant during Earth Hour, though. I’m not sure how big of a deal it was at home, but Earth Hour here was pretty big. During Earth Hour they had candles and fires lit and the turned down the lights (the kitchen stayed open) and just kept on running. It was cool, I’m not sure how many restaurants in the US would have done that, but Sandy said the restaurant she was at did it too. I know some of the host families also participated.