Saturday 16 May 2009

South African Cheese (and lots of wine) Festival

This is going back a while now but……..

The annual South African Cheese Festival was held just down the road near Paarl between 24th and 27th April and is a ‘must do’ on the local calendar. We went on Monday 27th which was a public holiday and enjoyed the ‘Indian summer’ conditions. It is now Autumn here and even though it is still mild by European standards the shorts have given way to jeans most of the time and even a jumper is required on occasions!

We booked some tickets with Shanien and her husband JF and planned a relaxing day sampling wine and cheese and whatever else was on offer!

Before we went Elaine’s parents (festival veterans) gave us some excellent advice – ‘don’t eat breakfast before you go’! Fortunately we listened to them because we didn’t stop ‘sampling’ for more than a few minutes during our entire stay!


There were literally thousands of cheeses of all imaginable types and flavours as well as wines and champagnes, mushrooms, olives, pâtés, spreads, meats, sausages, jams, breads, ice creams, chocolates etc etc. Foodie heaven and all for the price of a couple of pints back in the UK!


We probably only managed to get round about ¾ of the stalls during our time on site but as it was the last day the wines samples seemed to be much larger than usual. During the last hour it was normal for the wine stalls to actually fill your glass rather than just give you a taste!

As you can imagine we were all very ‘happy’ when we eventually made our way out, especially Elaine, who was even happier when she spotted the Fire & Rescue guys on the way out!

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