Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
valleys of dry orange soil. He pestered his
superiors back in Europe to send him some
vine cuttings. His bosses at the Dutch East
India Company must have thought him
crazy. African wine? How ridiculous! They
eventually relented, however, and sent him
some sprigs. Seven years later, on February
2, 1659, he noted in his diary “Today, so
praise be to God, wine was pressed from
Cape grapes for the first time.”
There are no tasting notes to tell us
how it went, but soon South African wine
became favored by European aristocrats,
deprived of French wine during the Napo-
leonic wars. Ironically, years later Napo-
leon himself drank it liberally to drown his
sorrows while brooding in exile at Elba.
These ancient camphor trees were
planted by Van Riebeeck´s successor, Gov-
ernor Willem Adrian van der Stel. In 6
short years he transformed a barren valley
west of Cape Town into lush orchards,
orange groves, vineyards, and cattle farms
by installing an irrigation system. Amid
gardens and vineyards he built a majestic
homestead that can be visited today. But
after Willem Adrian was expelled from the
colony, the property was broken up and
the estate fell into disrepair—as did the
South African wine industry. Its low point
was probably the dark days of apartheid,
when wine from this region became about
as politically correct as whale oil.
New owners in 1987 went about reviv-
ing the Vergelegen vineyards. Just as
Nelson Mandela ushered in a new era in
South African politics, Vergelegen has
become the country´s flagship winery. It
produces a dark and elegant Shiraz and a
complex, spicy Cabernet Sauvignon. The
winery is a fascinating mix of old and new:
Its magnificent mansion is surrounded by
an octagonal wall enclosing beautiful
grounds with petal-strewn lawns and
delightful lily ponds. This eight-sided motif
is repeated with the octagonal hilltop win-
ery, built with space-age winemaking facil-
ities and cellars arranged around a gravity
system. With its onsite restaurant and hill
walking tour, the entire experience feels
like a glossy photo shoot for
Homes &
Gardens.
Standing on the winery´s minimalist
roof garden, enjoying a 360-degree view
of mountains and blue bay, you again
question the logic of labeling wine regions
Old World and New World. The answer is
obvious. Vergelegen is neither Old World
nor New World—it is Other World.
Vergelegen,
Somerset West (
&
27/
21/847-1334;
www.vergelegen.co.za).
(
Cape Town Airport (25km/15 miles).
L
$$$
Arabella Western Cape Hotel
& Spa,
R 44 Kleinmond, Overberg (
&
27/
28/284-0000;
www.westerncapehotel
andspa.co.za). $$
Best Western Cape
Suites Hotel,
De Villiers and Constitution
streets, Cape Town (
&
27/21/461-0727;
www.capesuites.co.za).
Southern Hemisphere
359
Penfolds
Shiraz Conquers the World
Adelaide, Australia
If the grape is called Syrah, why do so
many wineries these days call their Syrah
wines Shiraz? The answer lies Down Under,
in a dynamic South Australian winery
named Penfolds.
In 1844, a visionary English doctor,
Christopher Rawson Penfold, planted
some French cuttings around his humble
cottage called “the Grange” outside of
Adelaide, to make fortified wine for his
