Ev- Feb 26th - Cycling in the Wine Lands

Cycling in the Wine Lands - Day 3

Ev-My third day was spent doing a SAS sponsored cycling trip through the wine lands. We started at the historic and beautiful town of Stellenbosch, one of the first cities established by the Dutch during their colonization of South Africa. The streets were lined with thriving flowers, and the old brick buildings were capped with English Ivy.

We biked through the center of town and out into the wine lands beyond, and began a 10 mile cycle between the mountains. The trip was surprisingly difficult, and by the time we stopped I was convinced that I was much more out of shape than I had previously thought. However, as we turned around and backtracked for a mile or two back to one of the wineries, we went downhill the entire way, proving that what we all had assumed was flatland was in fact uphill (much to the relief of our bruised egos).

The winery itself was a small but luxurious place where we learned the snobbish art of wine tasting and appreciation. We learned how to hold the wine, how to taste it “on our nose”, how to swirl it, how to sip it, how to taste it, how to air it, how to swallow. We were told to look for all manner of completely irrelative adjectives in the wine like “judicious” or “approachable”. Needless to say, when we left for our second leg of the journey, we all felt like quite the pompous aristocrats.

The next part of the trip was a 12 mile trip even further into the wine lands which proved, although flatter than the first, to be equally strenuous. It became so difficult the more athletically challenged members of the group that they were picked up by a shuttle van and brought to the next winery directly (only 6 out of the original 12 of us made it the whole way).