Ultimate Food and Wine Tour of South Africa

Touch down in Cape Town, and the clear ocean air immediately unblocks your senses. Table Mountain stands imperious, Atlantic Ocean waves roll against white beaches, and there’s always a sublime view to enjoy. Your private driver will greet you at the airport and you will transfer to the V & A Waterfront. After a relaxing afternoon, you will head out to one of the best restaurants in Cape Town. Experimental molecular cooking mixes with a plethora of traditional local flavors, creating a menu that changes with the seasons. Picture smoked seabass with celeriac extraction, frozen turnip and mustard, and lime compressed apple; local licorice-cured wagyu biltong, cauliflower, and truffle cheese black garlic salsa. The menu changes regularly, but these kinds of flavors await, and dinner comes with a wine pairing, taking you through nine exceptional small courses, each tailored to build upon the lingering flavors of the last.

Table Mountain stands imperious in the morning light, its vertical slope stretching over a kilometer above the ocean. Few people head up here in the morning hours, yet it’s when the views are at their most exquisite. Gaze down the tip of Africa, across two oceans, and over the bay to Robben Island. After taking the cable car up and down, you’ll spend the rest of the day exploring the hidden side of the mountain. The back slopes are draped with vines and 17th-century vineyards, which go mostly unseen by international visitors. Start at Constantia Glen, where a cheese and charcuterie platter is mixed with the vineyard’s red blends. Then continue along the slopes to Klein Constantia, the most revered of all the Constantia vineyards. One of the winemakers takes you through the tasting, leading up to a dessert wine that was in Platter’s top ten wines of the world. Then spend a leisurely afternoon at Steenberg, a historical vineyard that’s taken a new-world approach to production. If there’s time, the Constantia wine route has another eight vineyards to explore, all with stunning views of the city.

Cape Town has become the hub of a craft brewery revolution, with microbreweries evolving into major rivals to traditional brands like Castle and Black Label. There’s a staggering amount of choice, with over 50 breweries found within an hour of Cape Town. Today’s tour explores the best of these, with the brewers guiding you through the tasting. Devil’s Peak Brewery is an obvious place to start. It’s been the most successful in pushing craft beer into the mainstream market. Their tasting tray is all about classic styles crafted to perfection. Continue to Woodstock Brewery, where their tasters are always infused with the brewer’s quaint styles. You’ll start to experience the experimentation, in Indian Pale Ales, whiskey barrel matured stouts, and amber ales. Then continue to breweries peppering the city, each of them passionately producing something to try. There’s youth and vitality here, in both the beers and the tasting. As with all the day’s tours, you have a private guide and the pace is very flexible.

South Africa is famous for its meat. The country’s staple is large chunks of fresh steak, straight from the farm, barbecued over a wood fire and combined with a spicy salsa known locally as chakalaka. After a relaxing morning, you are taken to the township of Gugulethu, where the legendary Mzoli’s Grill is packed with locals and celebrities alike. Meat is purchased from the butcher, a range of steaks along with boerewors, thick traditional sausages. Rather than separated sausages, boerewors is a single circular roll that could weigh close to a kilo. Packed with the juiciest parts of a cow, it’s been a classic for three centuries. The meat comes out on a platter, and you eat with plastic cutlery. This is no luxury restaurant, but rather a local hangout that celebrates the multiculturalism of modern South Africa. Mzoli’s is widely regarded as the best barbecue experience in a country that loves to barbecue. Except it’s not a barbecue, it’s a braai, a local term that reflects the method of cooking on hardwood coals.

Start today at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, where a farmers’ market presents a wonderful choice of local produce. Taste chocolate that you can only find in Cape Town, try a decadent hot pork belly pie, sample all manner of sauces and preserves, and taste your way through farm-fresh biltong. With live music and a colorful atmosphere, this morning market has grown into the most loved Saturday hangout in Cape Town. From here you drive north to the vineyards of Paarl. The wines are rugged and full-bodied here, cultivated in a valley with challenging conditions. Winemakers must work hard, and that’s reflected in the wines they produce, particularly the Bordeaux-style blends. These wines are the perfect complement to the flavors of an old farming region. At one farm, you’ll combine wine and cheese, and then at another, you’ll pair the wines with local chocolate. Complete the tasting at The Spice Route, where multi-award-winning schnapps is among the select tasters. With views stretching over the valley towards Cape Town, today’s vineyards help provide an eclectic overview of the Winelands’ grapes and flavors.

Stellenbosch is the celebrated centerpiece of the Cape Winelands. Vines have dominated the valley for hundreds of years, carpeting the lower slopes of dramatic granite peaks. On a clear day, you sit on a vineyard’s terrace and can gaze out all the way to Table Mountain. With so many choices, your expert guide will base the day’s itinerary on your tastes. For bubbles, head to Villiera, where their Method Club Classique is the finest in the country. Shiraz grows wonderfully well on the graveled slopes of Hartenberg. For a journey through South Africa’s local grape, Pinotage, there’s no better experience than the winemaker leading a tasting journey at De Waal. Stellenbosch has five distinctive wine areas, and it’s always nice to explore the differences. Stellenbosch Berg is all about crisp whites and opulent red blends. Greater Simonsberg is where swanky wine farms create some of South Africa’s flagship bottles. The verdant slopes of Bottelary Hills provide unusual terroir for vineyards that aren’t open to the public; of course, your guide will be able to gain access to the finest private cellars here. With a few days in the Cape Winelands, the South African style is to follow your nose.

South Africa’s oldest town is dominated by whitewashed townhouses and flowing slopes of ancient vines. Franschhoek immediately immerses you in an old-world style, celebrating a bygone era through French-inspired restaurants and plush vineyards. The wines of this valley are unashamedly expensive, cultivated in the Burgundy style by a very choice picking of grapes and production. These are wines for a refined palate, offered from cellars that use first-fill French barrels and keep their bottles for years before release. Like yesterday, the itinerary will follow your taste buds. After a day of tasting, you have a dinner reservation at a restaurant that combines old-world European influence with the tantalizing tastes of Africa. Like the vineyards, you can appreciate how foreign influence has pervaded through Franschhoek. Yet everything is also distinctively African, celebrated through the beautiful vistas, welcoming atmosphere, and friendly smiles that greet every turn. The beauty of exploring South African food and wine is that it’s such a part of local culture. The places you visit aren’t for tourists; they’re where the locals go, where tastes are refined yet traditions go back for 300 years.

From your wine farm accommodation, it’s less than a 45-minute drive back to Cape Town International Airport and your departing flight. Enjoy a final breakfast overlooking the vines, perhaps with a glass of MCC, and then depart South Africa with a wonderful range of tastes still rolling around the palate.