South Africa Trip (July 2013): Wine Tour of Stellenbosch

So with the time difference and with a fun night out last night, Dena and I were awoken at 1pm by housekeeping. The wine tour left at 1:30... Luckily we made it. It was myself, Dena, the tour guide Vincent, and another woman who was ironically a professor of Education at University of Michigan. She was here to give a lecture and plans to come back to do research for her dissertation. The town of South Africa that is famous for the vineyards is called Stellenbosch and we did the half day tour and were able to visit 2 vineyards. This picture is from the first one where we did a chocolate and wine pairing. It was too early for the brandy, but the wines were perfectly paired (they said they spent over 2 years pairing them). I purchased a bottle of my favorite one to take home with me :)

Picture of the building at the first vineyard, an example of the Dutch architecture unique to this town. The Dutch settled Cape Town in the 1600's and this building was erected in the 1700's. All of the buildings throughout the town had the same architecture and all of the buildings were white.

The day was spent with fantastic conversation and it was great meeting such fascinating people. The wine was delicious, cheese plates to die for, and my favorite were the fresh figs.

Picture from the car.

This is Peter Falke Vineyards. His claim to fame is making socks and his vineyard was unbelievably beautiful. It was here that we had the cheese plates. It was great sharing stories and enjoying a relaxing day of all things good. During the day it's high 60's and sunny (winter here), which feels like 70's and one the sun goes down it gets cooler around 50's. The mountains in the background were breathtaking and he had 6-7 dogs that were the happiest dogs I've ever seen, running around playing or chilling tiredly on the steps. Below is a great panoramic of our view.