cntraveler.com
18.05.2024
A Guide to the Swartland, South Africa's Most Underrated Wine Region
An hour north of Cape Town, the Swartland, one of the largest wine-producing areas in the Western Cape, doesn’t receive nearly the same attention as its polished neighbors in the Cape Winelands; the clean-cut vineyards of Stellenbosch, Paarl, and Franschhoek, where a hop-on, hop-off wine tram runs through the valley. Instead, the Swartland is the opposite of a wine tourism hub, with dirt roads carving through golden wheat fields that form a pattern of stripes along the foothills of Paardeberg mountain. Along the highway, carefully stacked hay bales form a makeshift café—one of the sole roadside stops—and the only pop of color punctuating the blonde, desert-like expanse (which could double as a backdrop for a Clint Eastwood film) comes from the patchwork of old-bush vines and olive groves. After the winter rains, the native rhinoceros bush takes on an inky hue, which is how the Swartland (Afrikaans for “black land”) earned its name.