I gave them a few years to prepare themselves and it looks like they put them to good use. The Robertson Wacky Wine Weekend was ready for me. What a fabulous weekend we had. I took Friday off work so that my right hand man, my left hand man and myself could get a head start on everyone else. After the ubiquitous breakfast at Cafe Beleza, we did some shopping and then hit the road. We decided to go over the pass rather than through the tunnel. It was a good decision, I recommend it for anyone going that way during the day. At night it would be a waste of time because you wouldn’t see anything.
We arrived at Robertson, still feeling fresh. First stop was Rooiberg where we bought our passports for R30. I would just like to say it’s refreshing to not be ripped off for a change. At the Good Food & Wine Show, it was R70 to get in PLUS R15 for a crappy little wine glass. The WWW passport included a high quality glass along with some other magazines etc. Providing way more value than the R30 asking price. So anyway, we tasted some wine at Rooiberg, some not so nice, others even worse. Then we moved up the road to Bon Cap organic winery. The wines are very good and not badly priced either. It’s nice to see the number of organic wines increasing all the time. After stopping at one or two other arb farms, we headed for our accomodations.
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We could have gone straight there and arrived while it was still light, but we decided to get lost instead and arrive much later. The decision to get lost was not made by us, but rather by the person who wrote the directions. Phrases like ‘go straight at the fork’ were of even less assitance than cryptic directions like ‘turn before the 4th cattle grid’, which was supposed to mean ‘turn directly after the 3rd cattle grid’. Anyway we eventually found our accomodations after some very interesting conversations with locals whom we asked for directions. They really don’t speak English there.
The place was pretty rustic. Mud huts sans electricity and ‘donkey’ showers, etc. However, it was really quite nice. The lapa had electricity so we could keep our drinks cold and whatever else one does with electricity. There were nice walks (only one person got lost) and one could also swim in the river, etc. Actually a lovely place, just a bit far from Robertson.
So, we have a braai on Fri night as people arrive at irregular intervals. Some being lost a lot longer than others. The one guy was the obvious choice for elimination as he only found the place at 2am after getting the cops to help him as well as waking up some poor farmer at about 1:30am. Quality.
Saturday we assemble the group of 30 or so and head off to Robertson in the busses we hired. We pop in at Mooiuitsig and are not impressed. We move on to van Loveren and are extremely impressed. We find ourselves a table and are promptly presented with about 10 to 15 bottles of wine for tasting. We wash them down with tasty corn fritters while listening to the acapella band. Good option. Rugby is looming so we adventure off to Rietvallei only to find they don’t have a big screen. 1 bus goes to Cloverfield and the other waits for people like me who want to investigate Rietvallei and eat some of the picnic we didn’t pay for (thanks girls). Rietvallei was very pretty, we relax a while then we join the rest at Cloverfield.
Cloverfield was going nuts, so much of people. We won the rugby, tasted more wine, socialised with the 3422565 people we bumped into and finally headed off to Arabella for the main jol. Much to my horror, Arabella had no bar, they were only selling wine. I was totally wined out by this point so drank coke for the rest of the evening. The party was pretty good. A lot of people were going on about how bad the live band was, but the fact of the matter is that they got the people dancing and kept them going. After several hours at Arabella, we made the long trip home.
Sunday, we packed up and then went to Viljoensdrift for picnic lunch. It was stunning. We relaxed in the sun, eating our tasty picnics and drinking nice wine. We had amazing weather the whole weekend. They eventually kicked us out at 5pm and we wound our weary way home, 1x fantastic weekend under the belt. You will definitely find me there next year.
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