Wine country

Today's tour took Charlotte York and me into South Africa's Stellenbosch wine country, where we had the chance to sample wine from the region's wineries. Our guide was very knowledgeable and very helpful in sharing his perspective on post-Mandela politics. I'm not sure if he expected to enter discussions about foreign aid, trade imbalances, corruption, education and integration, but that's what he got today. Thankfully, he seemed quite comfortable sharing his honest opinion and we both came away with a deeper understanding of the country's current challenges.

Our first stop was the Jordan Wine Estate, where we weren't quite ready to guzzle wines. We sipped a few, noticed how different the wines tasted from the ones we were used to, then shuffled off.

Next up, we explored the town of Stellenbosch, which was quaint and reminded us of Sonoma. Home to a university, Stellenbosch had students everywhere and we made the acquaintance of a young Texan who was studying abroad. It really wasn't a terribly interesting town to visit, but it was cute enough. We were more eager to get back to our wine experiences.

It was time for lunch and we had a very excellent meal at La Petite Ferme. In fact, it was the best meal we had since our arrival in South Africa. Even more outstanding than the food, however, were the incredible views. The acres and acres of winelands and orchards set against pretty imposing mountains.

After lunch, we journeyed on to Rickety Bridge Winery, which was okay, but nothing really special. I enjoyed the ginormous teddy bears and cuddled up to one for a photo.

Finally, we ended our tour at Waterford Wine Estate, which was by far the most beautiful winery we visited. In fact, the wines we tasted were my favorite of the day, possibly because we did a wine/chocolate pairing! It was a very nice way to end a lovely day, which we joked was a quite romantic honeymoon for us.