Your don’t-miss guide to summer in Stellenbosch
Make a beeline for the Cape’s favourite winelands, where everything from warthog tastings to street soirées, and popsicle pairings to public sculptures prove Stellies is the sum(mer) of its parts this holiday season. Martin Jacobs delivers the lowdown.
Sitting alongside Afrikaans singer-songwriter Jak de Priester in the back of a minibus on a weekday morning, scrolling through photographs on his phone of him with other Afrikaans celebrities and personalities, isn’t any ordinary day at the office for me. He’s quizzing me on the celebrities he counts as friends whom I may also personally know (my tally is admittedly low), while I, in return, am getting a sense of his importance within Afrikaans culture. We’ve both been invited to Stellenbosch to experience some of the town’s returning and newest summer offerings, and by the time we’ve been driven from the town centre to Cavalli Estate, the first of our stops, we’re ‘Stellies besties’. Fast forward 24 hours, and what we’ve both established, apart from that his photo album is filled with the likes of him alongside Anneline Kriel, Arnold Vosloo, Arno Carstens and many other local personalities, while mine boasts only one celebrity selfie (me with a globally-renowned local fashion designer, from that one time we met on a photoshoot), is that Stellenbosch is the town to visit this summer.
The gem of the Cape Winelands, Stellenbosch throws open its doors wider than ever before between now and March 2025 – doors to its wine estates, cellars, hotels, restaurants, historic landmarks, museums and more! There’s something for everyone, regardless of age. Kids can enjoy an adrenalin boost along Blaauwklippen’s pump track, an educational boost at Hazendal’s Wonderdal Edutainment Centre, and a sugar boost at Middelvlei’s juice tasting and marshmallow braai, or Eikendal’s milk-and-cookie pairing. For the rest of us, there’s no end of wine farms to explore, galleries, bookstores and boutiques to browse, and restaurants worthy of the most languid of al fresco meals. With the historic university town making a stay all but impossible to resist, here’s what’s topped my list:
POPSICLE PAIRINGS AT CAVALLI ESTATE
Now in its eleventh year, Cavalli Estate continues to offer something entirely unmatched in the Stellenbosch winelands – a seductive combination of equestrian charm, award-winning wines, crafted cuisine and contemporary art, all within an estate that pairs linear modern architecture with landscaped indigenous gardens. Returning this summer by popular demand is the estate’s sorbet and wine pairing (R140 per person), for which four inventive sorbets by head chef Lucas Carstens are paired with four Cavalli wines. Perfect for summer are the Reserve White paired with a pear, sage and vanilla sorbet, and an Unoaked Chenin Blanc partnered with a lemon and thyme popsicle. Make an afternoon of it by kicking off with Christine Jacobs’s art exhibition (from late November until March) at Cavalli’s subterranean gallery, or visit the estate on the first Friday of the month for Sunset Sessions, live outdoor performances between 4pm and 6pm.
WALK THE ART MILE
Reason alone to visit Stellenbosch this summer is the newly-launched Stellenbosch Art Mile, a thought-provoking outdoor gallery that includes site-specific public sculptures, sensory experiences, and both playful and educational installations. The theme for the inaugural year is Tapestry of Time, with works curated by Clara Babette (a Stellenbosch Fine Arts graduate, and now with Oude Leeskamer Gallery) in conjunction with Charité Mouton, chairperson of the Stellenbosch Art Mile. The two women commissioned established and emerging South African artists to create artworks, intentionally conceived to weather, that consider the notions of deep time versus our fast-paced regard for time today and humankind’s instant-gratification demands on it. Art Mile is a 1,6km looped route that crosses six bridges along the Eerste River, with Krige Street bridge and Coetzenburg bridge at either end. It’s a family friendly and largely wheelchair accessible experience, free to all, that promises no end of outdoor beauty and interesting works by artists including Strijdom van der Merwe, Dr Rose Kirumira Namubiru, Ledelle Moe and Jean Brundit. You’ll want to wear comfortable shoes for this one, and have bottled water, sunscreen and a camera at hand.
TAKE TO THE HILLS AT STELLENBOSCH RESERVE
Jean Engelbrecht’s prestigious Stellenbosch Reserve’s relocation finds it high on the Helderberg hillside adjacent to Rust en Vrede, Engelbrecht’s family estate. With views that beg for a lunch table on the patio (but which aren’t in short supply indoors either), the restaurant favours a Mediterranean menu, with flavours that tend toward home-cooked. Lamb dishes in abundance, thin-crust pizzas from a wood-fired oven, and a signature rotisserie baby chicken are heroes on a menu complimented by Stellenbosch Reserve’s own wines (all named after historic Stellenbosch buildings), as well as a selection from labels including Cirrus, Afrikaans, and Donkiesbaai. Enjoy a weekday lunch special (R195 per person, ending 16 December) that pairs a glass of Stellenbosch Reserve wine with a main course.
www.thestellenboschreserve.com
PARTY IN THE STREETS
Presented by Stellenbosch Wine Route, Street Soirées returns for its thirteenth summer, a relief given that town locals and Matie students would likely protest – not party – in the streets if it didn’t! Every second Wednesday until end March 2025, from 6pm until 8pm the town’s historic Drostdy Street temporarily becomes pedestrian-only, home to a casual yet very energised summer party celebrating some of the region’s best wine cellars. Expect a lively throng of university students, townies and foreigners mingling below ancient oaks strung with bunting, and the iconic Moederkerk as a backdrop, all to the sounds of live music, the wafting aromas of street food, and the clinking of glasses. It’s the only place to be for those two hours, and a riot of wine-fuelled, people-watching fun. R220 per person gains you not only access to the soirée and a wine glass, but an assortment of tokens traded for wines at the plentiful array of stalls. Craving something more substantial than a snack to offset all that drinking? Get your order in at De Vrije Burger – legendary winelands chef Bertus Basson’s burger joint (also in Drostdy Street) – before 8pm, and enjoy what’s been voted one of the province’s best burgers.
www.wineroute.co.za and www.bertusbasson.com
GO WILD AT VREDENHEIM
Owned by the Bezuidenhout family for more than 35 years, with matriarch Elzabé the first female winemaker on Stellenbosch’s wine route, Vredenheim has recently undergone a reinvention. Championing all things local, the farm’s newest offering, Plaaslik, is an indoor-out eatery with views of the property’s colourful flowering gardens. Book a picnic Wednesday through Sunday – it’s a farm-fresh assortment of gourmet baguettes, cheeses, charcuterie, salads and quiches paired with a Vredenheim wine (R780 per double bag, R980 per triple bag). Or, in keeping with the farm’s Roofdierpark big cats experience (which includes twice-daily feedings of lions, tigers and leopards), opt for the Wine Experience (R195 per person), a wine tasting that includes pairings with smoked warthog and crocodile carpaccios. How’s that for wine tasting on the wild side?
SAY CHEESE AT L’AVENIR
Looking to escape wine-tasting tourists in their busloads? Book a cheese and wine pairing (R200 per person) at L’Avenir, one of an elite handful of Stellenbosch wine estates owned by AdVini, a French authority on terroir wines. Just four kilometres from the town, L’Avenir boasts intimate, personalised tastings in a garden that slopes down to a pretty lake. Brush up on your Pinotage knowledge with Ryan Bredenkamp, Experience and Cellardoor Manager, who’ll share his wealth of viniculture knowledge in a pairing that includes the beautifully bottled Glen Rosé (a Pinotage rosé) paired with a goat’s milk chevin, and a honeyed Single Block Chenin Blanc that partners with a goat’s milk gouda.
STAY, FOR LESS
For the two weeks between 13 and 27 December, Stay and Play (www.stayandplay.visitstellenbosch.org) is offering discounted stays at a generous handful of boutique hotels, guest houses, self-catering apartments and wine estates so that visitors can upgrade from daytrips to multi-night stays. These two get my vote:
Bonne Esperance Boutique Guest House offers charming budget-friendly accommodation in the heart of Stellenbosch. Housed in a Victorian villa, the guest house spills out onto some of the town’s prettiest English-style gardens (think blossoms, blooms, topiary and fountains), landscaping rivalled only by the university’s botanical gardens across the street, well worth a visit. Rooms total 17, some with balconies or patios, and include not only the mod cons that make a stay comfortable, but an abundance of old-world charm. There are loft rooms, single rooms and rooms for families, many of which face onto a garden and pool.
Adjacent to Bonne Esperance Boutique Guest House is Middedorp Manor, much like the former, a stone’s throw from the town’s history-rich centre. Middedorp Manor boasts the dual offering of a three-bedroomed villa as well as classic, superior and deluxe self-catering apartments. The latter are well suited to guests planning longer stays and who may want cooking facilities (think stovetop and oven, microwave, Nespresso machine and more), a full-size fridge and a washing machine for convenience. Regardless of category and size, none feels cramped nor are they noisy, all are contemporary in design with gentle Scandi vibes, and all come with secure off-street parking and access to a communal pool.
*Prices checked at time of going live. Whilst every care is taken to ensure accuracy, Lifestyling.co.za (and the suppliers featured) cannot be held liable for any errors.
