Franschhoek

We wake up and compete over who’s had more sleep. We’ve both topped out at 10+ hours. YUM. We’ve got a pretty early start in Franschhoek, so get a hustle on, and an Uber into town. The Franschhoek wine tram is great fun. It leaves at 09:30, and the first wine stop is about fifteen minutes later. Not to be outdone, the guys on the tram give us a snifter to get our day moving. Our first port of call is Rickety Bridge - a winery neither of us have visited before. It’s just before 10:00 when we request some sparkling wines, and some of their flagship estate wines. The sparkling wines are really good. The flagship wines are a little variable, but of a decent standard. The sun is already heating up, so we stay in the shade as long as we can. A tractor drives us back to the tram stop.

Our next stop is Grande Provence - again, new to both of us. We do a similar sparkling/flagship wine tasting - some crackers in here. We notice they sell both a semi-sweet and dessert wine based on Muscat, and ask if we can try those as well. Good grief - they’re good. Designed for very different purposes, we can quickly imagine ourselves enjoying a bucket load of each of them back home. By now, it’s all of 11:30. We’re both getting properly hungry, having foregone breakfast in the interest of expediency. Our next stop is Mont Rochelle, where we’ve booked a picnic. Arriving just after 12:00, we dive into the air-conditioned tasting room. We taste their flagship Chardonnay and Syrah, as well as their estate white and rosé wines. They ask if we want to eat our picnic outside - we quickly decline. It is just too fucking hot. The mercury is reading 38C, and we’re simply not built for it. We pick a bottle of their high-end Miko Syrah to accompany our lunch. We grab a table inside their heavily air-conditioned dining room, and unwrap our picnic. There is an avalanche of food, We fall upon it - perhaps a little too quickly. We are ravenous, and just perhaps a little drunk.

We briefly consider heading straight back to our guesthouse, before we remember that there’s load-shedding between 14:00 and 16:00, so we may as well stay out. Jumping back on the bus, we head to the next winery. As we drive down the road at 50mph, the wind whipping around the bus is honestly like someone is blowing a hairdryer on us. We spend 5 minutes discussing when we’ve ever felt this hot before. Melbourne on Christmas Day in 2016 was 42C, and we both felt like we were being cooked alive, albeit slowly. This is in the same ballpark. It is ball-bustlingly hot. Arriving at Klein Goederust, we are unenthused to find that we need to sit outside for our tasting. We are both beyond flagging. Happily, we spot an air-conditioned tasting room to one side of the main tasting area, and we occupy it with vigour. It is joyful. The wines are a disappointment - perhaps because we are sooooooo hot. All we can think about is getting back to our room, our A/C, the pool etc etc.

Dropped back at the tram terminal, we walk a few minutes down to Franschhoek Station Pub, in the hope that a Savannah / Spiced and coke might cool us down. They do not. Sweltering, we appeal for an Uber to take us back to our guesthouse, where the power has just recently kicked back in, and A/C is available to us. I decide the quickest route to coolness is a plunge in the pool, and I’m not disappointed. Air-drying in the shade, I read my book, amidst the stunning surrounds of the Franschhoek valley. It might be fucking hot, but it’s still fucking beautiful.

We head back into town to grab a bite. We aim for the Franschhoek beer company, only to find it closes at 17:00, and ultimately end up back at the Station pub. We saw someone setting up a sound system earlier, and wondered if we’d see a DJ this evening. No - karaoke. The quality is, let’s try to be kind here, mixed. Couple of drinks and a pizza later, and we’re back in our room, feeling like an early-ish night is in order. We’re both asleep by 22:30…Read more