Through the grapevine - A Cape Wine Route Adventure

Through the Grape vine

Beautiful Sunrise

A common sight on the wine route

Vineyard sunrise

Scenic drive

A toast to life and all the finer things in it

When you're so happy but try to be humble about it!

The Graham Beck stand at the wine on the river festival

My perfect shot from the cruise - This is a bottle of the Paul Rene MCC we enjoyed, with the beautiful sunset as our backdrop 

My husband and I have just come back from our first (proper) Cape wine route adventure and I'm itching to share the experience with you! I say 'first and proper' adventure because we've visited a couple of wineries in the likes of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek before but we've never come to the Cape especially for the wine experience. It has always just been a day trip from Cape Town and back. This time around, we had a full on wine experience.

Our first stop was the Graham Beck winery, which was just a few minutes before our actual destination, Robertson. Robertson is a small town in the Western Cape, known as the valley of wine and roses, located right at the heart of the wine route - Route 62. It was our first time here. We've only driven past it but it's impossible to not take notice of this town and all the others along this route because this is probably the most picturesque part of the Cape I've seen. Table mountain gets a lot of coverage and hype through various platforms and is well-known around the world but I'm almost certain every tourist who gets to visit this part of the Cape will wonder why they hear so little about this area. I think the wine route is way underrated. The mountains here have so much character you'll wonder why they aren't as celebrated as Table mountain. Infact, I think we would all have a difficult time choosing which mountain to put on the wine route's postcard because they are all so different and so unique but I'm dwelling on this now (I'm a nature lover).

The purpose for our visit on this side of the Cape was the wine festival called Wine on the river. My husband's company is now involved in this event and him and his colleagues were here to get first hand experience of the event. We had a pre-event dinner on our night of arrival, which was a Thursday. We then attended the first day of the weekend long festival on Friday. Before heading to the venue we decided to drive around to explore the wineries in the area and we stumbled upon Van Loveren estate. The drive through there alone makes you feel like you're entering the grounds of royalty. The service was amazing. We did a wine tasting and walked away with a few more names of wines added onto our shopping list. The place is so serene and beautiful with its lush gardens.

We must have arrived at the festival venue around 2pm. The place was beautifully set up with hay stacks wrapped up in clear plastic used as the coolest seating spots you've seen along the river banks.The day was beautiful with clear, blue skies. The heat was immense but nothing to complain about because all you needed to do was manage your exposure to the sun by hiding under the umbrella shades, every now and then. The crowd was a good mix or young and old (more middle-aged than old), different races (although mostly White) and gender. The volumes were more manageable on the first day. We even got to do a sunset cruise on the boat. I'm glad we took advantage of the boat on the Friday because the queues to get to the boat were too long on Saturday, with many having to be turned back because the tickets were sold out! The tickets themselves are quite reasonable at R50 p/p for a 30 minute cruise. I still think the cruise is way too short though. We were till mesmerized by the beautiful sunset when we realized we were nearly at  the docking station. We took some amazing pictures and met a lovely couple onboard. The sunset from the boat is really something to behold.

The event ends a little earlier than I had anticipated (6pm) but I suppose the idea is to not have people driving in the dark after all the wine they would have been tasting throughout the day. The second day was pretty full and abuzz with activity. The heat was still blazing but we managed to work through the various food and wine stalls that were set up, including the Graham Beck stand (because it's my favorite MCC). This whole experience is something I would recommend to wine lovers and lovers of the finer things in life because the wine route will surely deliver on all fronts. If you would like to have lunch or dinner at any of the wineries in the area, enquire beforehand because not all of them serve lunch/dinner. You will also need to check their opening and closing times as most of them open late (from about 12pm) and close early (around 6pm). We identified some lovely chalets that are right on the banks of the river as our place to stay when we do the festival again next year.

Drop me a note here if you get to experience the beautiful Route 62!