Cape Town Flower Show review

by

in

I went to the Cape Town Flower Show on Saturday. The weather was fantastic, which was a good start. On arriving in Somerset West we had about half an hour of bumper to bumper traffic just trying to get into the Lourensford Estate, which was not wonderful. One very good decision later, we were off down one of the side roads to visit Morgenter and Vergelegen Estates. I was eager to visit Morgenster because they really do us proud by consistently winning awards in overseas competitions for their olive oil, and their green olives were recently voted ‘best table olive’. I was blown away by how beautiful the estate and wine tasting facilities were. They have just built the new facility and it’s stunning. Cool, summery decor with beautiful views through the large glass doors. We tasted the wines first, 3 reds (they don’t make white). We sat at a table and each wine was explained while we tasted from big wine glasses (nice change from those usual cheap tasting glasses). The wines were of a high standard, full bodied and interesting. They were not cheap though, the one we liked the most was R95 per bottle. Which might explain why the wine (and olive) tasting was R20. Then they brought us a tray of olives and olive pastes (not tapenade) to try with some biscuits. All very nice. Finally we tried the olive oils which were magnificent. We were abolutely delighted with our visit to Morgenster.

Vergelegen was next, it’s only 2 minutes around the corner from Morgenster. We were a little put out about having to pay R10 per person just to get into the estate. The wine tasting itself is R5 per wine! So not a cheap experience, expecially if you want to taste all 15 or so wines. However, it is such a beautiful estate, it was well worth every cent. We had to drag ourselves out of there, the beauty and serenity was almost hypnotic.

So, back into the queue of cars for the flower show. We eventually got parked and caught the tractor ride to the entrance (great fun). The show was a big event with lots of different things to do. I tasted some wine, bought some food for lunch, looked at the flowers, chatted to friends I saw there, listened to the live music, got really sunburnt and didn’t get round to checking out the polo. Some of the flower stands were very impressive, others less so. The stand that was at the Chelsea flower show was absolutely stunning. I didn’t have a camera with a flash otherwise I would have taken photos. If I had seen it in London I would have been so proud, it was breathtaking in every respect.

A lot of people commented that they expected to see some nursery’s there with flowers and other garden things for sale. I agree, that would definitely add to the show. Also, I would have enjoyed more food options, I wasn’t impressed with my lunch.

I had a lovely day out. This is one of the reasons I love Cape Town. Other cities in SA don’t offer much like this and I really appreciate it. When I take visitors from around SA to wine festivals and olive faires, etc, they are always very impressed.