Spier Stellenbosch, Cheetah Outreach and Moyo

After having spent most of the conference week dealing with key ratios and tax laws for small and medium sized enterprises, along with lecturers concerning leadership and organizational issues, we head downwards towards Spier Winery in Stellenbosch. Apart from visiting Spier Winery, we have booked an appointment at Môreson Winery in Franschhoek. Dinner will be spent at the very famous restaurant Haute Cabrière just outside Franschhoek. But that’s another post!

Spier Winery is beautifully located just outside the city of Stellenbosch. In addition to the winery, the site harbours a cheetah and bird rescue farm, which I plan to visit as soon as I am done at the winery. We enter.









We are shown to the comfortable tasting room by Jackie, who acts as our tasting leader. First we are given a glass of sparkling wine, which turns to be Method Cap Classique Brut (NV). Very fruity, and rather acid. A nice wine which I guess would fit nicely as a starter.




Thereafter, we are presented with a still white wine. As I plunge into the glass, a formidable and rather volcanic scent of grass hits my nose. Definitely Sauvignon Blanc! After being washed over by this grassy smell, scents of gooseberry arise. Very nice. This is my favorite wine – which, I suspect, says nothing of the subsequent wines due to my preference to Sauvignon Blanc.





Anyway, after this we taste a few red wines which are excellent, including a barrel taste. But maybe not my cup of the English drinking stuff…

We give our gratitude to Jackie for the very entertaining and educating tasting and sort of subconsciously move into the wine shop. I am close to grabbing both the sparking and the Sauvignon Blanc, but in the end I settle for two bottles of dessert wine, 2005 Savanha Reserve Noble Late Harvest (100 per cent Semillon). Not that I dislike the sparkling and the savvie, but I am thinking of the flight home and being soft on sweets, I cannot really get enough of dessert wines.







I walk out of the winery and head to the cheetah rescue center, the Cheetah Outreach. The purpose of this centre is to let people meet captivity-raised cheetahs, thus creating more ambassadors for this endangered species. I pay the entrance fee and enter with a guide volunteer who has given me clear instructions on how to behave within the compounds of the animals (don't do anything stupid). Such slender animals! Just to feel the fur and body moving up and down as the animal breathe is a deep sense of connection. If you are ever visiting Spier, please do not forget to visit the Cheetah Outreach. Thank you for setting this up.













We then head to Moyo were we eat lunch, Moyo being rather touristic and slightly too plastic for my taste. But the food was great and we felt very welcome.





After Speir, Moyo and the Cheetah Outreach facility we move on towards the city of Stellenbosch. We do not stop there but move on to the Môreson Winery outside Franschhoek. I’ll return with more notes on that! Thank you Spier, Cheetah Outreach, and Moyo for a great visit!