Wow. Yes that really is a mouthful. While in Cape Town we drove to Franschhoek, three hours from Cape Town to take part in a private wine tour that B’s cousin had set up for us, at the vineyard Boekenhoutskloof. We were super privileged to be there as you could only visit by appointment, and teamed with the stunning surroundings and the fact that we were there to learn about and drink wine all day made me feel super fancy.

To be honest the whole experience was rather surreal. Except from a few workers on site, we were the only people on the vineyard and straight away were introduced to our tour guide and expert; a lovely man called Innocent. And yes, he was as sweet as his name made him sound! He showed us how the wine is created, where it’s stored and told us all about what the vineyard produces. It was really interesting seeing as I really didn’t know anything about wine (except never order the cheapest on the menu).

At the end of the tour we were led to this beautiful room where by coincidence the master wine makers were in the process of choosing the wine blend for the following year’s release. Told you this was fancy stuff! We had a table set up outside surrounded by mountains, with wine glasses and water bottles at the ready. Innocent brought out a selection of Boekenhoutskloof wines one at a time for us to taste, which was of course highly enjoyable. The spittoons were not used once, surprise surprise.. and when Innocent said we could have as much as we fancied once we had tried them all – there was no looking back. We then went off to explore the grounds and luckily it seemed the sun had sweated most of the alcohol out of us in time for lunch.

As if we hadn’t been spoilt with scenery already, La Petite Ferme offered us another beaut to look out onto as we ate. We were so lucky with the weather – seeing as it’s winter at the moment in SA – but it was odd eating from the winter menu while basking in the heat. I had rabbit stew with couscous for my main and it proved to be one of the most tasty meals I had during our stay. This topped off by more wine was proving to be a great day. We got speaking with the owner of the restaurant when he spotted one of our mobiles in plain sight on our table and stated ‘you’re not from here are you?!’ Nice to know even in the middle of a valley overlooking the incredible countryside, you still have to hide your valuables!