Wine Tram Tour in Franschhoek

Friday is Wine Day! 🍷

Stellenbosch is famous for being South Africa's wine hub and today we went on our first wine tasting tour. Our guide picks us up at the student residence and drives us to the Wine Town of Franschhoek, which in Afrikaans means "French Corner".

The town ows its name to its french heritage. In the 17th century, group of french protestants known despectively as the "Huguenots" were persecuted and thus they flew to other countries in Europe and some European colonies. The Dutch organized the resettlement of some of these french religious refugees to the Dutch Cape Colony, today's Western Cape province in South Africa. The French settlers were granted land in this valley and so they made use of the climatic conditions and the know-how they brought from home and started producing wine.

Franschhoek is indeed a little France. Most of the wine farms have french names and many of its inhabitants have French last names and can trace their roots to the French settlers that arrived by ship in the 1700s.

After the history lesson during our 30 minutes ride, we board a tram that takes us through the wine yards while we taste our first glass of red wine. We visit two different wineries and taste 3 white wines, 2 red wines and 1 rosé, most of them quite tasty! 🍷
We had a great afternoon chatting and drinking wine together with the other international students.Read more