No, I did not visit Fairview, producer of these 'goaty' wines I saw at the airport going home. We did meet one of their sales reps, though, in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. The wine we had with our fish there was a Riesling. De Wetshof in Robertson made the second and last Riesling I tasted in South Africa.
In a week and a half I visited some 10 wineries, from Bergkelder/Fleur du Cap, Beyerskloof, Reyneke and Stark-Condé in Stellenbosch, to Constantia-Uitsig in Constantia. In between I also visited wineries in the Franchhhoek (Boekenhoutskloof), Elgin/Botsrivier (Paul Cluver, Barton, Gabriëlskloof), Robertson (Springfield, Arendsig), Malmesbury (Sadie Family Vineyards) and Somerset-West (Waterkloof, Vergelegen) areas.
In general, I was more impressed by the whites than the reds. The three different sauvignon blancs at Waterkloof, e.g., or the 5 chardonnays (oaked and non-oaked) at De Wetshof. Cabernet sauvignons tasted were often very typical, i.e. (for me) bellpepper and leafy , Vergelegen being the exception. Barton was the discovery of the trip; this winery is young, relatively unknown but produced good to very interesting wines (chenin, sauvignon blanc, shiraz/cab sauv, sémillon).
At Reyneke I felt for maybe the first time I really understood the philosophy behind bio-dynamic viticulture. The wines were OK, too.
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