A Wine Drenched Tour Along The Red Route of Paarl, South Africa
The wine tradition in Paarl is older than the roots of the aging
Oak Trees that line its Cape Dutch streets. The first European
settlers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, planting the
seeds that solidified the Cape's reputation as a wine growing
heaven.
Now that the work has already been done, what else can you and I
do but savour the delicate fruits pressed with decades of
winemaking experience and travel the newly formed routes leading
us to the finest wines in the world.
Forget the majesty of the Drakensberg Mountains, try to ignore
the historic monuments perched loftily upon pearly hills, the
kind of wine tasting to be done in Paarl will require every
ounce of your concentration.
Now that we know what we are going to be doing in Paarl, apart
from enjoying the scenery, let's make a journey into the
winelands, delving into present day winemaking communities,
uncovering their interesting attributes and tracing those lively
wines to hideaways so often missed by the multitude.
Along the way, if we're lucky, we may make the acquaintance of a
genuine Garagiste, a class of heretic garage winemakers shunned
in France by the old school traditionalists because of the stir
their independently crafted wines create. There might be a hint
along the way as to where we might discover one of those who
make these