Winelands

I decide that since I have the car for a few days that I will get some of the eco-friendly dish soap I saw last week in a grocery store in the Tygerberg Valley. Rather a long way to drive for dish soap burning how god knows how many carbon molecules - but nonetheless I head off North on the NI Hwy. The biodynamic soap we are using now leaves a rather unpleasant grease on everything unless the water is scorching hot. As much as I am pulling for my biodynamic dish soap to be a wonder product, it's just not cutting it and it's time to move on. I will use it to clean the toilets.

As I pull off the highway and head Northeast into the low rolling Durbanville Hills overlooking the valley, I realize I live ten minutes from some of the most prolific wine growing regions in the world. Cool! What a great industry for Africa - value-added, agriculturally-based, exportable and climatically leveraged above most other nations who will never ever be able to grow wine. This is a major winner positioned for growth for a long long time. One day the mines will be empty or the unions will be unaffordable, but in good times or bad - everybody likes a good drink.

The first vineyard or estate I pull into is the Hillcrest Estate where they have the cutest little olive oil sales shack at the bottom of the long driveway. The company has wisely decided to diversify from wine and move into other higher price-point goods like olives and oils. I taste every olive on sample and buy the kind with the prettiest bottle so I can re-use it at home as a candle holder or flower vase so I can get 2 uses out of one product, save money and save the earth.

The second estate has a gorgeous restaurant with huge windows framing the hills and valley in a table-side portrait of wine beauty. It's too bad there is an arctic gale lashing itself at us today but I suppose the cold and rains are what feed the grapes so they can grow into delicious African nectar. The 'Cassina' restaurant is located on the Nitida Wine Farm on the Tygerbergvalley Road (or the M13 Hwy) in Durbanville. This is classic South Africa to me - modern yet historic - they've been growing wine here since the 17th Century. In 1655, 3 years after his arrival in Table Bay, Jan Van Riebeeck of the Dutch East India Company planted the first vines. That's three hundred and fifty four years ago - about the same age as the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.

Photos; Cassina Restaurant on Nitida Wine Farm, Hillcrest Estate olive shop, Durbanville Hills