12 Amazing Stellenbosch Wine Tasting Experiences

South Africa is a hidden wine gem destination.

Sure, you can drink South African wine almost anywhere in the world. However, there’s nothing like drinking it at the source. And not just because of the epic views. We’re talking about the wine itself.

The wines of the Cape Winelands (Stellenbosch in particular) are extraordinary. As a bonus, world-class South African wines won’t bust your wallet. And those views…

We’ve tasted some of the greatest vintages of the last 30 years including wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Piemonte, Alsace and Tuscany. We’ve enjoyed great wines from California, Oregon and Australia.

We were pleasantly shocked by the quality of wine in South Africa.

To make the South Africa wine situation even better, many of the great South African wines are produced in one of the most beautiful places on earth. In Stellenbosch, vineyards are set at the foot of jutting mountain peaks shrouded by misty clouds that evoke a Shangri-la like landscape.

The quality of Stellenbosch wine should be no surprise since the Stellenbosch weather is ideal for growing grapes. Everything about its mineral-rich soil to Southern South Africa’s hot, dry climate allows grapes to reach their potential. In other words, Stellenbosch wine producers have an enviable palette for their work.

Best of all, wine tasting in Stellenbosch is a casual experience that visitors can easily enjoy without pomp and circumstance.

At wineries like Peter Falke Wines, it’s entirely possible to buy wine (we recommend an affordable bottle of Cab), plop down on a bean bag chair in the beautifully manicured garden, order a wonderful cheese sampling and melt into the bucolic, golden sunset – a sunset that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

The best place to drink South African wine is at the source, and we suggest you start with the 150+ wineries located along the Stellenbosch Wine Route. Not only do these wineries produce extraordinary wines, but many offer themed tastings with foods as varied as cheese, biltong, ice cream and cupcakes.

When we weren’t eating at Stellenbosch restaurants, we visited as many Stellenbosch wine farms as our livers could handle during our six-day visit and can honestly report that there were no clunkers. Not one.

We highly recommend staying overnight in Stellenbosch. You can stay at a range of Stellenbosch hotels, many of which are conveniently located on or adjacent to wine farms.

This approach will give you more time to drink some of the best wine in South Africa, if not the world. Plus, you don’t have to worry about driving back to Cape Town when you stay overnight.

Peter Falke Wines knocked our socks off. We’re not just saying that because owner Peter Falke made his fortune by selling socks in Europe.

The hosiery mogul bought the Stellenbosch wine farm in 1995 and produced his first wine, a Cabernet, in 2003. Today, winemaker Werner Shernek produces more varietals, most of them red.

You need to visit Peter Falke to taste many of them since the winery chooses to distribute its wine primarily to restaurants and boutique stores. The grounds of the winery are nothing short of gorgeous, with a colorful rose garden, designed by Falke’s Parisienne wife Danièle, and views of the Helderberg Mountains in the distance.

Interestingly, Peter Falke Wines does not host weddings or other private events. Instead, the winery chooses to keep the property open to visitors looking to enjoy good wine in a breathtakingly chill environment.

Pro Tip
Order a cheese plate to go with your wine and the view. Also, be sure to try the Bordeaux style Exclusive Blend with 85% Cabernet, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Merlot.

Peter Falke Wines is located at Groenvlei Farm, Annandale Road, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

Off the typical tourist track, Meinert Wines conducts limited tastings by appointment only. These tastings don’t include any sugary treats or a flashy tasting room. At this Stellenbosch winery, wine tastings are all about the wine and the man who makes it.

A former journalist from Namibia, Martin Meinert trained and studied as a winemaker and worked at top South African vineyards (including the legendary Vergelegen Wine Estate in the 1990s) before opening his self-named winery. He quietly runs his boutique winery by annually producing 80,000 bottles of affordably priced, age-worthy wines, each bottle labeled by hand and sealed with a screw top.

If you’re skeptical about wine bottles without corks, these luscious, complex wines will turn you into a screw-top believer.

Pro Tip
Buy a bottle of Synchronicity, the top Meinert wine with 55% Cabernet and a blend of Pinotage, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot grapes, to enjoy later. Better yet, buy a case or two.

Meinert Wines is located at Devon Crest Vineyards, Devon Valley, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

Known as the “Home of Chenin” for the wonderful Chenin Blanc wines they produce, Ken Forrester Wines also makes Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinotage and Cabernet Sauvignon. Many of the wines here sparkle with fruit-forward flavors including the aptly named Sparklehorse, a white sparkling wine produced with 100% Chenin Blanc grapes grown on 37-year-old vines.

Discover our favorite sparkling wine cocktails.

A tasting at Ken Forrester includes either six tastes or the full range of wines, with the winery waiving the fee for tasters who purchase two or more bottles after the tasting. We recommend ordering a cheese plate to enjoy with the wine tasting.

Be sure to select several Chenins to taste since this is the “House of Chenin” after all. Then just sip and nibble away the afternoon at the winery’s lovely outdoor tasting room.

Pro Tip
Don’t be surprised if you love the FMC, a Chenin Blanc that fizzes with minerality. Martin Meinert (see above) produces this wine for Ken Forrester Wines.

Ken Forrester Wines is located at Scholtzenhof Farm, 96 Winery Road, R44, 7600, South Africa.

Proving that it’s never too early to reinvent yourself, May de Lencquesaing sold her ancestral winery in Bordeaux and started Glenelly Estate on a former fruit farm on the Stellenbosch Wine Route at age 78. That was over a decade ago, and both de Lencquesaing and the winery are going strong.

She doesn’t do it alone though. Winemaker Luke O’Cuinneagain runs a tight ship in Glenelly’s pristine, modern facility, utilizing his previous experiences in Bordeaux and Napa to make bold red wines rooted in South African soil.

We were surprised to discover the winery’s excellent, crisp Chardonnay – the kind of varietal we don’t usually associate with the hot Cape Winelands climate. As O’Cuinneagain explained to us, the Stellenbosch soil never suffered through the ice age, making it older and more weathered compared to the soil in Europe and the Americas.

O’Cuinneagain produces three wine ranges, including the Lady May, all of which can be sampled during an on-site tasting. If you’re hungry, you can order an accompanying cheese plate from the onsite bistro.

Pro Tip
Take some time to peruse the winery’s spectacular glass collection. Not only do its pieces span the centuries, but it also happens to be one of the largest private glass collections in the world.

Glenelly Estate is located at Ida’s Valley, Lelie Street, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

If L’Avenir represents the future of South African wine, then that future looks bright. Owned by a French company, the winery’s name of L’Avenir literally translates to “the future” in French.

This French theme carries over to the mostly French barrels (except for those from Hungary), but L’Avenir’s grapes are purely South African. The team at L’Avenir picks these grapes by hand before Winemaker Dirk Coetzee transforms them into highly drinkable wines.

Although the winery makes some fun Rose and sparkling Methode Cap Classique wines, the real winners at L’Avenir are the big fruit-forward Pinotage wines. Be sure to try L’Avenirs best in class Single Block wines.

We stayed overnight at the L’Avenir Country Lodge in a lovely room with a private pool. It’s a perfect spot to unwind, eat great food and drink excellent wine.

Pro Tip
Do your tasting outside in a serene spot overlooking water and vines. Better yet, pair your wine tasting with a selection of Wagyu beef biltong from Ken Forrester Wines. (See above.)

L’Avenir Wine Estate is located at Off R44, Klapmuts Road, R44, Stellenbosch, 7599, South Africa.

Instead, join Alsace the dog for a cellar tour and learn about how the Mombergs produce their free-range Pinotage and why they repurpose barrels for their Rooster wines. If you’re lucky, you can even “steal” some wine from a barrel for a bonus taste.

Pro Tip
Be sure to include at least 40% Pinotage grapes when you blend your own wine at Middelvlei. This is the minimum for your wine to qualify as a Cape Blend. By sheer luck, we included 50% Pinotage in ours plus 40% Shiraz and 10% Merlot.

Middelvlei Wine Estate is located at Middelvlei Wine Estate, Flamingo Street, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

If you love ice cream, why not do an Ice Cream and Wine Tasting? It sounds weird, we must admit, but Chef Nadia Louw Smith creates seasonal ice creams that pair well with the estate’s Clos Malverne wines.

We’re not just talking about typical vanilla and chocolate flavors. Her sophisticated flavors include the likes of Saffron Cheesecake with Sesame Brittle (paired with Chardonnay) and Salted Coconut with Lime and White Chocolate (paired with Sauvignon Blanc).

Pro Tip
Be sure to make an advance reservation for your Ice Cream and Wine Tasting. The popular restaurant at Clos Malverne is rated #1 on TripAdvisor.

Clos Malverne Wine Farm is located at Devon Valley Road, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

If you fancy fine wine and fast horses, then a visit to the lush grounds owned by the Taberer family is a must. During our visit, 40 magnificent Thoroughbreds (38 mares and 2 stallions) blew us away with their graceful limbs and powerful muscles.

The winery offers a fun tasting pairing five of their wines paired with candy from Basilei Handcrafted Confectionery, a local shop that specializes in fudge and nougat. Request a taste of the Cabernet Franc – it’s owner Michael Taberer’s favorite wine from the estate and ours too.

** Important Update – Die Bergkelder has permanently closed. **

Although pairing salt and wine sound bizarre, the Salt and Wine Pairing at Die Bergkelder is a fun way to taste unfiltered Fleur du Cap wine while learning about salts from around the world. Don’t worry – the tasting doesn’t literally involve eating salt with a spoon.

Instead, the salt is served with foods like Green Olive Tapenade and Chicken Liver Pate. During our tasting, we sampled salts from Pakistan, Hawaii, Himalaya and South Africa.

“Olive oil is not fashion. It’s passion.”

When you need a break from wine tasting (trust us, it happens), why not try an olive oil tasting at Tokara? Gert van Dyk runs the olive oil program with a high level of passion and Italian presses. His olive oil sells out every year, with bottles sold locally in South African and as far away as Taiwan and the United States.

During a tasting, you can try our best to identify flavors like rocket, lettuce, tomato and green praline. Hopefully, you’ll do better than us since we found that all of the olive oils tasted like… olive oil.

Pro Tip
Be sure to taste van Dyk’s experimental olive oil. You will love its bold, unfiltered flavor profile.

Tokara Wine Estate is located at Helshoogte Road, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

The drive from Cape Town to Stellenbosch takes less than one hour. Although you could easily do a Stellenosch day trip from Cape Town, we recommend a multi-night stay so that you have time to visit more Stellenbosch wine estates and restaurants without feeling rushed. We stayed in four hotels over six days in Stellenbosch, and we didn’t get bored even for a minute.

As for transportation, your best bet is to rent a car in Cape Town so that you can drive to all the wineries as well as the best restaurants in Stellenbosch. Other options include public transportation (i.e. a bus or train) to downtown Stellenbosch or Uber, a popular car-share service in South Africa.

Once you’re in Stellenbosch, Uber is a great option since you can taste wine without worrying about assigning a designated driver. You can also arrange a Stellenbosch wine tour with companies like Cape Food & Wine Tours.

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