Sometimes I think that to live in Johannesburg is to relinquish agency over the pace of your life or else gloriously exit in pursuit of it. If you’re anything like me, you’ll both love it and hate it and spend most of your time oscillating between thinking that’s what makes it incredible and that’s what makes it a tidy nightmare. My recent trip to the winelands reminded me of the summertime, the careless and sometimes wreckless abandonment I felt as a teenager sans adulting problems. I was ready for winter getaway comprised of a good read and even better wine.

I wasn’t hopeful for outdoor activities other than a cellar tour and wine tasting. But as the stars would align we were blessed with a faux summer and being at Spier wine farm I’m nothing if not an accidental cliche…just give me a glass of no. 3 Creative block and utter the words ‘fireplace in bedroom’ and I AM sold but I wasn’t quite ready for all they had up their sleeves. The winter getaway deals are basically a steal and with everything on the wine farms to-do-list, totally worth it.

I landed in Cape Town with anxiety in spades a, slight emotional offbeat but it wasn’t long before I knew it was going to be a good one when we rolled past the city life and I had a sense that I’m definitely in wine country now.

I was welcomed with wide open arms and naturally a glass of red or white but it didn’t matter that I may have only been 10am, aaah yes, I was home. Those mechanisms are key, the well-trained staff that is, myself and Heloine (my friend mad enough to enjoy a weekend away with my current emotionally unstable self) kept commenting on how many times we’d been greeted by the staff. It’s the little things that make all the difference really. They made a relatively unknown like myself feel like Rihanna. I actually should have walked around with shades and a fur coat everywhere pretending I owned the farm and was just checking up on my assets…maybe next time?

I wont’t lie the rest of the day felt like a bit of a blur I swear my Instagram Stories captured all the in-betweens. I actually needed to be off Instagram Stories and tapping into the well-stocked barrels in the main production plant that we got to taste directly out of. Thanks to the amazing organic wine maker, Tania (hello girl power) who went above & beyond and answered all Heloines nerdy wine questions as I happily sipped and snapped away! Imagine wine barrels stacked floor to ceiling for rooms upon rooms. That’s what daydreams are made of.

If you ask me about the trip I would say I drank really good wine, ate really good food (the wine farm boasts some impressive restaurants, farm to table style) and had really good laughs but that would defeat the purpose of a travel post, so let me get back to it. The wine warm I way bigger than I had remembered from previous years of being a student at Stellenbosch University when we would just buy a picnic basket & sit at the dam all Sunday.

But we got to explore way more of the farm than we had anticipated on the Segway tour. Adventure seekers this one is definitely for you…once I got over my fear of falling which was literally the first 45 minutes of the tour, I relaxed and envisioned living on a farm and milking a cow. The beautiful views and the freedom of the Segway serve as a proverbial escape button for us city slickers.  I was super impressed by how much almost everything is recycled in some way or another on the farm and all sort of community upliftment gets filtered into every little thing they possibly do.

Why you love this place so much and not just aesthetically?!

I couldn’t leave without doing a nostalgic picnic on the lawns and boy was it even better than what I remember, I mean I know they said its only for 2 but that picnic basket with a half a chicken could easily feed 5 but shhh… let me not say that too loud in case they hear me. Its very family friendly but being the very low-key girlfriend type this would be an ideal date for me (I can feel my family rolling their eyes at me) but ask any past boyfriend they know.

Besides taking in the views and discovering everything you can actually do on the farm we had to do a proper sit-down wine tasting of course. And the winter tasting dare I say it didn’t sound inviting to me because soup does not equate to food in my world. But alas soup and wine it was and Gina did I not have to eat my words! The pairing left me wanting to lick all the soup bowls and asking for more, they’re lucky I was looking hella cute in my chinos and gold kitten heels so I opted not to.

Hey, Spier you kinda know what you’re doing hey, and you do it freakin well!

I’ll be back

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