If there’s one thing that immediately seduces about South Africa, it has to be the air. Earthy and dusty and wild and occasionally punctuated by sweet incense, it’s totally intoxicating. And the wines? Oh my god. But before we get into my serious Chenin worship, here are few shots from lunch at Rustenberg Wines, high up the Helderberg slope near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape region of South Africa.
See those five trees at the top of the mountain? They’re 80-some-year-old stone pines known as Five Soldiers. We drove to the top to have lunch underneath the pines with owner Simon Barlow.
There was a warm wind blowing throughout lunch. Heaven. And the views? Dreamy. Look at those gorgeous red clay soils.
The wines were pretty spectacular, too. And, yes, that’s a magnum of 1999 Peter Barlow! (Be very, very jealous.) Thank you, Simon. We should do this more often…
