At the foot of the trailhead is a sign warning trekkers of venomous snakes, particularly the cape cobra. The cobras venom affects the nervous system, respiration and heart. There are also puff adders lurking about, but with a description of being “fat as a sausage and sluggish”, I’m less concerned about these guys. While reading my eyes widen and I ask my husband if we dare continue. He nods yes. We’ve made it all the way to South Africa and if we venture on this short hike we’ll take in a view of the surrounding vineyards and the clouds spilling over the mountains in the distance. Up we go, cobras be damned.
Franschhoek, South Africa may not be the first place brought to mind when envisioning a trip to wine country. Located just 90 minutes outside of Cape Town and perched at the tip of Africa, Franschhoek lacks nothing when it comes to food, lodging, natural beauty and yes, wine.
My husband and I chose to stay at Maison Cabriere in the town. On our arrival we walked past the entrance not even knowing it was there. It’s nestled behind a door obscured by trees and greenery. Once through it’s a tiny oasis. Our room is light filled and spacious, with a patio that looks out onto a garden filled with lemon trees and lavender. For lunch we walk ten minutes to the main drag. It’s 90 degrees at noon. The kind of afternoon that makes you want to bypass food entirely and skip right to wine. We end up at inVINcible, a wine shop and tiny French style bistro where we order a light meal of sardines on toast and a caesar salad and sip on chilled chenin blanc and sauvignon blanc.
Despite the heat the cold wine revives me as I sit on the street people watching. After lunch I’m able to venture back into the heat and continue exploring. Luckily, downtown Franschhoek is so small you can walk from end-to-end in under twenty minutes. We check out the Huguenot Memorial located at the tip of the Main Road, dedicated to the French and Belgian Protestants (Huguenots) who immigrated to South Africa fleeing religious persecution. Then we stumbled upon the Franschhoek Art Market that takes place every weekend. Part flea market and part farmers market, there’s vintage jewelry, hand printed dresses, produce, cured meats, and booze.
Carl and I meander for a bit, oohing and ahhing at the goods that couldn’t possibly fit into the backpacks we’ve stuffed with enough clothing to take us around the world over three months and across both hemispheres. Instead of purchasing items that wouldn’t make it out of Africa we do the next best thing — Drink more wine.
We plop down at a small table with pinotage and syrah and listen to the market’s house band. When we’re beaded in sweat and feeling particularly languid we peel ourselves off our seats and journey back to our hotel for some pool time. Over two hours we alternate between napping, dipping in and out of the water, and reading.
When hunger sets in we dress and stroll to the nearby Col’Cacchio where we order a broccoli and avocado salad and a pizza heaped with prosciutto and arugula. There’s more wine of course — a La Motte Sauvignon Blanc and Beyerskloof Pinotage. The sun is still high when the check is dropped off. It’s a warm and gorgeous evening, but Carl and I have no energy left and lethargically trek back to our room.
One of the things about doing a round the world tour is that by 9PM your body is exhausted, your feet ache and you fall asleep within moments of hitting the pillow. Then come 7AM the following morning that fatigue has seemingly melted off and you’re excited as hell to wear yourself out all over again.
We found ourselves at The Hoek Espresso at 8AM drinking down cold brew and chomping down fresh baked scones. This is an espresso bar in the true sense that there’s nowhere to sit inside. We order our caffeine boosted beverages from a chic barista, choose from an assortment of pastries lying in vintage cake stands, then park outside at one of the small courtyard tables.
Breakfast was light and quick because we had to hop into a Lyft to make a 10AM garden tour at Babylonstoren outside of town. Babylonstoren is a winery and hotel, but it’s also more than that. If I had to define the embodiment of “lifestyle” it would be Kinfolk, Goop, and this place. We’re deposited by our driver in front of a white washed building that’s a farm shop selling green fig preserves, macadamia blossom honey and Egyptian dukkah. I can see free range turkeys grazing in sagebrush. I’ve been here twelve minutes and I can already say this place is ridiculous. I can’t wait for more.
We find our garden tour group nearby, led by a sun wrinkled middle aged woman named Gundula. She has deeply tanned skin, silver hair, peaceful eyes rimmed with crow’s feets and the most beautiful accent. Over the next 90 minutes she guides us through the 300+ varieties of fruits and vegetables grown onsite. The garden is divided into immaculately groomed blocks with names like “guava avenue” and “mulberry meditation”.
She points out the citrus trees growing around us. “Here’s Valencia orange”.
Big deal I think. “And granadilla, satsuma and num num” Wait, wut?
As we’re run through the vegetables I feel like I know nothing. Here I am with my paltry palette familiar with carrots and potatoes. I keep up with swiss chard and beetroot and then become impossibly lost hearing names like cavolo negro, mangetout, and waterblommetjies. I feel like I’m in an Adam Sandler movie attempting to order at a 5 star restaurant while wearing basketball shorts and flip flops with socks.
“I’ll have the crud titties”. “Ah yes, the crudités. Very good sir”.
All throughout Gundula speaks of Babylonstoren as if she’s in a cult. “Our menus are derived daily from whatever in our garden speaks most to our chef as he wanders the garden at sunrise”. “If you stay here we place bundles of fresh herbs in your shower every morning – Ever scrub down with rosemary? It rejuvenates the body and stimulates the mind”. If she said staff read French and Mandarin to their persimmons I wouldn’t be surprised.
The tour wraps up as she leads us to a massive beverage dispenser crammed with what looks like lemons and blood oranges. Given the walkthrough we were just given though, it’s probably something like a pomelo-sunchoke hybrid and dwarf pineapple. Gundula pours each of us a cup, saying it’s sun tea that’s been blanching since morning. I drink it without hesitation. If there’s anyone I’ve met whose kool-aid I would drink, it’s this womans.
Once the tour ends we move onward to the on-site restaurant Babel where we have a noon lunch reservation. Babel’s interior is a dreamy mix of whitewashed brick, white tile, poured concrete floors, massive windows and black ceiling beams. Painted into the custom wall tiles is a twelve foot tall cow face staring out at the diners. It’s tres scandi-South African.
We’re led to our table and sitting on top is a gorgeous bouquet of proteas. Prior to coming I’d let the restaurant know we were in the area for our honeymoon (one year after marriage, but true!). Babel didn’t disappoint. The protea is a South African flower and just so happened to be the featured flower in my bridal bouquet, upping the gift’s beauty in my always sentimental eyes.
The restaurant’s menu is very color oriented. The three choices of starter were named based on their color palette: red, yellow, green. We order the yellow and green.
Yellow is crispy ricotta clusters with sweet melon, beetroots, mint, fennel, yellow prickly pear topped with kei apple dressing and edible flowers. Green is grilled and crispy fennel in thai green curry dressing with garden greens and herbs, granny smith apple, prickly pear and three types of figs.
For mains we order pumpkin risotto with sage and black fig butter, popped sorghum, meyer lemon ricotta and pickled butternut ribbons. And smoked trout with pickled dill cucumbers, passionfruit leaves, fennel, and pear.
Each dish is almost too pretty to eat and is served with a specially paired wine. Gundula pointed out an entire garden of edible flowers earlier and I can see the kitchen isn’t shy about using them. I’m not used to eating 40 plants in a sitting and the result is an explosion of freshness.
I so badly want to cap the meal off with dessert, particularly the sage meringue sandwich with yogurt, macerated watermelon, prickly pear and whatever the hell a “drizzle of mampoer” is. Given that we could barely finish our mains I settled for a desert of fresh juice. Green for me and red for Carl.
Over the course of the meal we must have seen over a dozen groups turned away. For anyone jazzed to visit I strongly caution that without booking in advance it’s near impossible to do anything here other than wander aimlessly. The garden tour fills up weeks in advance. Don’t try to drop-in for a meal. After lunch we moseyed to the nearby wine room and learned it’d be over an hour wait for a tasting.
Luckily the grounds are so gorgeous we were undaunted by the prospect of time to kill. We revisit the prickly pear maze, dip into greenhouses filled with squash and succulents, stroll among the vines, sit next to the lily pond, get lost under towering cactuses, then what do ya know, it’s time for more wine.
The wine tasting room is yet another perfectly designed space. It’s entirely glass walled, giving imbibers a view onto the surrounding gardens. Surveying the crowd, everyone is wine chic. Hair is coiffed. The color palette is neutral. Fabrics are linen and cotton and khaki. Our neighbors at the table next to us are a thirty-something couple with a toddler seated in a high chair. The husband has a perfectly trimmed ginger beard and is wearing a navy button down and terra cotta slacks. The wife has a blonde blunt cut and is wearing a beige wide-brimmed hat, black canvas overalls and white tee shirt.
My five year goal is to be this couple. Gazing lovingly into their partners eyes, tenderly stroking their baby’s cheek, relaxed and poised, effortlessly chic and jet setting about with their Disney princess looking daughter. At Babylonstoren the setting and grounds are stunning. The food is a culinary experience. The wines? Meh. We sip half a dozen varieties and while none of them are bad, none are especially memorable. Thank goodness. Everything needs a fault.
We decided to end the afternoon with a short hike overlooking the area. It’s here I find myself stationed in front of the sign warning of cobras underfoot. The slight wine buzz is likely what pushes me forward. My reward is a view of the clouds spilling over Franschhoek. On damp mornings the air rises and cools over the surrounding mountains, creating clouds that cling to the peaks before pouring down into the valley like an avalanche. This spectacle happened each day I spent in Franschhoek and was always magical.
By the time we finished our snake free descent it’s 5PM. I’ve managed to spend seven hours at Babylonstoren. I do wish we’d stayed here for the three nights we were in Franschhoek. But I also like keeping the $3,000 in my bank account the stay would come with, so it all evens out.
Since our return to the states I’ve bought the Babylonstoren cookbook. I can make almost nothing from it given an ingredient list not built for the Northern Hemisphere (A whole chapter on the pepino melon? Rad!) and a habit of oversimplifying steps on par with the technical challenge in the Great British Baking Show. Recipe for gluten-free baked fig cupcakes with rosemary hazelnut is as follows:
Combine 500 ml hazelnut flour, 125g caster sugar, 5 ml rice flour, 5 ml cornflour, 10 ml soft butter, 1 egg, and 1 egg white, 5 ml lemon zest, 5 ml finely chopped rosemary and a pinch of salt. Line a muffin tin with fresh fig leaves smeared with butter, with the smeared side facing up. Spoon hazelnut mixture into the leaves until they are a third full. Place a whole fig on each one. Bake for 35 minutes until golden brown. And the recipes for yellow juice and green juice are respectively as follows: Gooseberry / kei apple / carrots / nectarine and yellow pepper Green pepper / pear / fennel / parsley and lemon
The writers of the book expect the reader to be a professional chef. Someone who can read a vague menu description and translate it into a perfect dish that’s not bland or raw or grossly misshapen. My two attempts to recreate the green juice I drank in Babel have been epic failures. Turns out providing a list of five fruits and vegetables is not, in itself, a recipe. I now treat Babylonstoren the book as a memento and have given up using it in the kitchen. It’s better that way.
After our multi-course lunch I’m barely hungry for dinner, but we must eat. It’s the perfect time to hit up Tuk-Tuk brewing in town for fish tacos and a tasting flight. The food and beer are both perfectly average. The spot, cozy and unpretentious. Carl and I saddle up at a wooden booth and play a few hands of Elfern, happily soaking up the relaxed atmosphere. Come 7PM when we’re back on the street we ask ourselves the ultimate wine country question: To go to bed or to get more wine? Heck, babies are still up at this time so we answer “wine”.
Bovine beckoned to us on the walk so we dropped in for a tasting flight from Black Elephant Vintners and another round of cards. My husband and I keep track of who wins each game and calculate results every January to find the year’s winner. In 2020, the year claimed by Covid, Carl reigned supreme.
Back at the hotel I end the evening by reading on the porch, sipping on prosecco and listening to the darkness. I have a stomach ache (I blame you, edible flowers) and convince myself that the bubbles are medicinal. Carl lays in the four-post bed behind me. Peaceful.
When I wake I know another day of wine is ahead of me. Truth time. I’m less of a wine person and more of a beer person. I like wine. I enjoy wine. But I don’t know wine. When asked what tasting notes I’m getting I invariably answer tobacco, stone fruits or vanilla. If I’m feeling particularly bold I’ll say a wine is leathery, earthy or minerally. I don’t embarrass myself by chewing gum during a tasting, but I’m no somme. I raise my eyebrows at the person next to me who gets hints of sawdust, damp twigs and kougelhopf.
As a non-wine-loving lover of novelty, I’m psyched to hop on the wine tram today. Carl and I sit over eggs and bacon at the River Cafe ready to purchase tram tickets only to find…it’s sold out. It’s mere weeks before Covid would be declared a global pandemic, bordering on the off season, 8AM and a freakin’ Monday on top of that. Alas. I was feeling so in-the-know yesterday with my afternoon of reservations yet forgot it’s essential to book the tram in advance. All eight lines are full. Time to find a transit alternative to get to Boschendal where I booked us a noon picnic. We order an Uber easily enough and arrive at the winery at 9:30AM. The timing is less than ideal since the winery doesn’t open for another half hour.
There’s a lovely footpath behind the winery that we stroll along during the morning light. We walk for what feels like an appropriate amount of time, turn around, find only 45 minutes have gone by and arrive at the tasting room at 10:15AM.
I’ve never been one for morning drinking. I don’t brunch. I lunch. Yet here I am ordering a wine flight when McDonald’s is still serving McMuffins. When I need to use the restroom I have to walk through a staff seminar on how to pair chocolate with reds. The discomfort I feel is amplified when I push on multiple locked doors in full view of the group until I find one that gives. I’ve always had the ever-so-coveted skill where awkward moments amplify my anxiety to the point I’m unable to perform basic skills like open doors or locate credit cards. Add to that housing a glass of wine during coffee hours and I’m a mess in Birkenstocks.
I’m thrilled when the afternoon crowd starts to spill in around 11:30. These people have the good sense to abide by brunch hours before imbibing. When I pick up our basket I feel as if I’ve accomplished some kind of Herculean effort. In reality, I’ve just done one of the bougiest things possible — purchased a picnic basket for two filled with, among other things, house churned butter and baguette, camembert with onion marmalade, and coronation chicken. I set this down at a lovely table with a country view, take a bite of bread and within moments, bees. Not some semi-annoying lone bee that requires shooing. I’m talking about Wicker Man levels of bees.
There are bees on chutney. Bees on quinoa. Bees on chocolate meringue tarts. I’m nervous to butter my bread. I look out to my left and there’s a plume of smoke. Cool. I shoo some bees off of homemade marshmallows, look back, and the smoke cloud has grown larger. It appears there’s a massive forest fire in the distance that no one’s concerned about. It’s a wee bit hard trying to enjoy chicken salad when you’re unsure if a disaster is birthing before your eyes, but I still find it moderately enjoyable.
Then I noticed the regal couple from yesterday setting up their picnic on the grass next to us. She’s wearing the same hat and a black cotton empire waist dress. He’s wearing beige from head to toe and I think that’s a bold choice when tiny, sticky, little hands are just inches away at any moment.
Once we’ve consumed most of our basket we head to Eikehof winery. Compared to megaliths like Babylonstoren and Boschendal this small family run winery feels downright quaint. There’s no farm shop or blog. No on-site restaurant, just an assortment of cheese plates. No branded merchandise for sale other than wine. It’s refreshing. We take our tasting flight outdoors to one of the wooden picnic tables overlooking the grapes. Chickens mill about our feet. It’s the kind of place where you can catch your breath.
The family matriarch stops by our table to chat. She asks the usual where are you from and how long are you in the area. Then she thanked us for choosing to stop at Eikehof. She tells us how while their winery is on the wine tram route, few get off at their stop. Most tourists want to go to the larger wineries. Most carry on to the award winning Chamonix or Dieu Donne. Or to places like Leeu Estates or Holden Manz that offer five-star lodging. She says this like we’re all in on this together. Like Carl and I are a different kind of traveler. I nod and smile, knowing we spent the morning at one of those rivals.
She goes on about how it’s hard to be in the wine business these days. Hard to compete in these modern times. It’s not the same as it was when her husband’s family started producing wine here a century ago, when they planted the oldest sémillon vines in South Africa, dating all the way back to 1902. It’s the golden skinned grape used to make the very wine we’re drinking. Now the people want experiences and frills over a quiet multi-generational winery that offers quality wine. I listen and think this woman sounds tired. Worn down by the area and social media and the 12-time-gold-medal-winning pinot noir reserve from the vineyard next door. During all of this I’m grateful I’ve never been primed to run a family business or inherit a family legacy. How exhausting it must be.
Sitting here I realize this may be the first moment since I arrived in Franschhoek where the area has revealed just a sliver of itself to me. All the places I went to were so scrubbed clean, so tourist-friendly, they lacked the grit that lets you see the heart of a place. And now here I am with this woman lamenting about the state of her life with chickens clucking about around me and a smoke cloud in the distance.
These are the moments that stick. Maybe on my next visit I’ll have a palette for wine and will remember every pour I sample. For now, I often recall this solemn conversation, the cobras that may have been, the fire that didn’t consume the town, the bees, Gundula’s chignon, the spilling clouds, and the unobtainable green juice. Then I remember that getting here takes over 24 hours of travel and I know that if I want wine I should probably go elsewhere. Franschhoek I should leave as I remember it. Just like the green juice, I can no longer recreate what was before. Besides, I never cared about wine that much anyway.
american-alchemist 