This weekend past I decided to take a drive out to Somerset West. An ever growing and evloving town, that’s alot more than meets the eye.
Sure on a lovely summers day, you can go to Bikini Beach in Gordons Bay or take a hike in the Helderberg Nature Reserve. Or you can do what my sister and I did and start off your day with a coffee at Merkava in Caledon Street. Definitely the best coffee I’ve had in that area. They roast their own coffee on the property, which I believe is a single origin, all the way from Brazil. When you stop there do yourself the favour and grab a cinnabon with your coffee.
After our coffee we headed off to Morgenster Estate for olive oil and wine tasting. For just R75 per person you get to taste 5 oils and 1 balsamic vinegar, 3 wines and a small platter with olives, olive paste and bread. The lady who did the tasting with us, was very informative and helpful. Do try the Caruso Rose from their Italian collection. I’m not a fan of Rose, but this was surprisingly delightful.
Next stop was Lourensford Wine Estate. They have a lovely restaurant here called The Millhouse Kitchen where they serve real feel good food. Unfortunately we had to give lunch a skip this time as we went a bit overboard with the bread and olives at our previous stop. So we only stopped for a wine tasting. Unfortunately for us they had group of some sort there when we arrive and the result was we didn’t get as much attention as with the other places. Regardless, we still enjoyed the wines. I highly recommend trying their MCC Brut and the honey liqueur.
Our last stop was Waterkloof Wines. Now this was truly spectacular. Apart from the view, the wines was superb and knowing that they’re all produced from a biodynamic farm is absolutely amazing. We got a cheese board (which is produced on the farm) and started with our wine tasting. You can clearly see that the tasting room attendants are all very passionate about their job and the wines. The atmosphere is relaxed and again, that view!
Okay, so I know I said in the last paragraph that Waterkloof was the last stop, but after having all that wine, I think I had momentary memory loss. Our last stop was at Uncle Barry’s Ice-cream shop in Gordons Bay for some soft serve ice-cream. For only R20 you get a sugar cone vanilla ice-cream dipped in chocolate or caramel. But let me tell you. Do not get ice-cream when you’ve been wine tasting all day and the South Easter is blowing. I had ice-cream everywhere. In the car, in my hair, it was one big mess! But in the words of Nick Miller (from the TV show New Girl) “Do I regret it? Yes. Will I do it again? Probably”
So next time you’re in the area, make sure to stop at one of these places.
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