In a sidecar motorbike through the winelands

We had the most fabulous day in the winelands around Paarl and Stellenbosch today, driving around with a sidecar motorbike from Cape Sidecars Adventures. Anders Ohlsson did the driving and I did the wine tasting.
The bike was a vintage sidecar from 1968, produced in China on blueprints that trace their origin to BMW military sidecars from the late 30's. Really cool. To make it even cooler, the helmets we had used to for Chinese fighter jet pilots.

We started with some truly great wines at Nederburg (winery of the year), continued with lunch and more wines at my old favourite Muratie and finished with Hartenbergs excellent Shiraz.

Nederburg

Lovely lunch at Muratie.

A great shiraz.

Rain in the semi desert

Believe it or not, but yesterday it was raining in Porterville - during the dry season in what can almost be described as a semi desert. Unheard of. We blame our fellow Swedish pilot on the trip, Jenny Persson, who is an undercover rain goddess.

To try to please the gods we went wine tasting again, covering six wineries and 32 wines. Meerlust was first out, followed by a brilliant lunch (gemsbok!) at the restaurant 96 Winery Road. Then Ken Forrester, Uva Mira, Hidden Valley, Ernie Els and Peter Franke.

In the end it didn't help, today it is raining even more. What's going on with the weather in the world?

At Meerlust

Meerlust

An excellent wine we had at 96 Winery Road

Beautiful hemsbok fillet at 96 Winery Road

Two great wines at Ken Forrester

Uva Mira's lovely terrace

At Ernie Els

At Peter Falke

Wine tasting around Stellenbosch

Tokara's new beautiful Deli.

Views from Tokara

Tor, Bonen, Magnus, Jenny and me tasting some nice wines at Thelema

The cute accountant at Thelema set us up for the tasting.

Views from Vrede & Lust

Yesterday it was too windy for flying so we went wine tasting around Stellenbosch instead. Nice!
We started at Kanonkop, famous for their reds. Although they didn't impress much on us, but you never know until you try. Next stop was Simonsig where they are producing some good sparkling wines. Then we had a lovely lunch at the new deli at Tokara, followed by a tasting. Their Sauvignon Blanc is still good. Of course we couldn't miss Thelema just next doors, and it was as good as always. We had a fika in Franschoek and then stopped at a last vineyard, Vrede & Lust, on the way home. They had a pleasant rosé.

Today is the first day of the paragliding competition in Porterville. We will see if we can fly, right now the wind blows the wrong direction but it is forecasted to change. Lots of people araound, in fact 120 pilots from all over the world, including California, India, La Reunion and Finland to name just a few countries. Hopefully it will be lots of fun.