The beautiful fertile valleys of the Cape Winelands are found just 40km from the city of Cape Town. Despite their proximity to the cosmopolitan streets of Cape Town, the wineland areas of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl have a completely different feel and a history and culture all of their own.
Even if you are limited for time during your stay in the Cape, a day trip to the beautiful Winelands is essential. Ideally you should spend 2-3 days exploring this region and sampling the world-famous wines. The Cape Winelands also offers some of South Africa’s finest restaurants. Living in the Cape we have all spent many days wandering the winelands and sampling its fruits so
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Stellenbosch,
Franschhoek and
Paarl form the main areas of the Cape Winelands. The Western Cape is the largest wine producing region in South Africa and produces more than 830 million litres of wine annually.
Unlike places such as California, South African wineries are not taxed for each year that the wines are held in maturation, either in the barrel or the bottle. This allows winemakers to offer more mature wines as they are able to release the wine later and also offer it at a less expensive price.
With the increasing popularity of South African wines worldwide, it’s not surprising that the South African wine industry plays an increasingly significant role in the national economy. The industry contributes billions of rand to the country’s GDP and exports a major percentage of their production mostly to Europe and the UK but also increasingly to the US and Australia.
The winelands weather is very similar to that of Cape Town but the temperatures do tend to rise about 5 degrees higher than the city in summer. This is mainly due to the fact that there tends to be far less wind to temper the harsh African summer sun.
The Cape Winelands are situated fairly close to the coast and are found mainly within large valleys surrounded by impressive rocky mountain ranges. The start of the Cape Fold mountains in Stellenbosch have created soil that is extremely favourable to vines and grapes are grown primarily for wine. The fertile soil of the Cape Floral Kingdom (the smallest yet richest of the world’s plant kingdoms) also contributes to the area's wine-growing successes.
Suffice to say that wine-making and of course wine-tasting are very much a part of the Western Cape culture and experience. A visit to the Cape would simply not be complete without experiencing the tranquil beauty of the wineland areas.
