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This week our Naked Wines columnist Libby Brodie touches down for a wine adventure in South Africa
Even as someone who tours wine estates around the world for my job, rarely have I visited one on the same jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, gob-smacking scale as South Africa’s Vergelegen Wine Estate.
The Western Cape of South Africa already got more than its fair share of natural beauty. It boasts 30 times more flora than other similar-sized parts of the world, with 70 per cent being unique to this little corner of the world. And nowhere is this abundant variety more evident than at Vergelegen.
We arrived at the Cape Dutch Manor House to find it quietly arranged for us, as if we had lived there all our lives and just stepped outside for a moment. The historic wood-panelled rooms were perfumed by candles. A light supper awaited us in the dining room. The wine fridge was full.
To stay here is by invitation only, with previous occupants ranging from heads of state (Nelson Mandela, the Queen) to pop culture superstars (Celine Dion, Elton John). And now City AM’s wine columnist and her Significant Other. From April, however, it will be available for mere mortals to book – expect my return.
Libby’s Naked Wines diary: a South African wine adventure
We spent an excited half hour exploring. One walled courtyard held a private pool and Gatsby-esque striped loungers, another was filled with scented flowers, lanterns and a firepit. In our bedroom we found a cushioned four poster bed, a roll-top bath and a mirrored two-person shower – I wondered what Elton got up to in here.
Walking the grounds, we strolled past manicured rose gardens, a wide green picnic lawn, across red boulder-lined rivers and through fields of bright sunflowers. We stopped in a thriving kitchen garden, growing produce for the restaurants on site, to pick a peach from their orchard. It felt so wholesome, so healthy, so far from the grey commuter trains of London – and we hadn’t seen anything yet.
Vergelgen is over 3,000 hectares and only five per cent of this is dedicated to vines, the rest being a nature park where animals roam free. During a safari jeep ride, Christo Deyzel (a man who can spot a particular type of beetle six metres away while driving and be able to tell you its gender) pointed out racing wildebeests, majestic eland, herds of quagga. These horse-zebra hybrid looking animals were near extinction but now Vergelegen, renowned for its environmental work, is bringing them back from the brink.
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Pausing to take in the sea views and taste the sensational Sauvignon Blanc, we were buffeted by wild winds coming off the coast. Everything is huge here, the craggy cloud-topped mountains, the towering forests, the wide African skies. It is awesome in the true, biblical sense of the word.
We found a blue watered chalk dam, surrounded by the silent expanse of nature, and went wild swimming. There were no humans around, but a tethered inflatable unicorn bobbed a little way out. Our business-brained, bon-vivant host Wayne Coetzer had anticipated this author’s reluctance to wade into the brisk water and so tempted me out with some chilled rosé inside the unicorn.
Refreshed for an evening at the annual outdoor RMB Starlight Classics concert we opened a bottle of Herencia Altes Benufet Organic 2021 (Naked Wines, £19.99; Angel Price, £15.99), as you know I always like to pack some good wine when I travel. This old vine Garnacha Blanca was crisp and smooth with a delicious weight to pair with our picnic of biltong and charcuterie.
I have visited hundreds of wine estates in my time but none quite as magnificent – or merry – as here. If you were to visit only one winery in your life (poor soul) I cannot imagine choosing better.
£1650 per night / sleeps eight; book at vergelegen.co.za
Read more: Libby’s Naked Diary: How I created a limited edition wine with amazing artist Nigel Stefani