In Vino Veritas

I normally hate getting drunk on wine unless said wine is from a box (note: South African box wine is top notch). I also feel like I constantly have to be sophisticated as I drink wine and hide my drunkenness, as opposed to the chaos that is created by games of Slap That. Most of these things were forgotten on Saturday.

South Africa is famous for its wine, and people often take drives on the “wine routes” to sample. This weekend was even better, as it was the Stellenbosch Wine Festival, an ode to grapes and Bacchanalic debauchery. Originally Quynh and I thought we were going to have to take an American named “Enrico” with us who was staying with Quynh’s host mom’s (Patsy’s) friend. We soon found out that Enrico was actually Dmitri, a Brazilian-Russian guy who went to Wesleyan and is now attending law school at BC. Dmitri had followed a girl to South Africa and was doing a program in Pretoria, but then the girl broke up with him, so now he has a plan to hook up with girls “from A to Z” (from Afrikaans to Zulu). I tried to up the ante by persuading him to hook up with a girl who spoke each of South Africa’s 11 national languages. He would fail in this task miserably later that night.

The drive to Stellenbosch is incredibly scenic- at least, the latter part of it is. As you drive towards the airport away from Cape Town, you pass all of the townships that we normally visit. It’s like an old, dusty Western town (or like Australia when it was a penal colony). We had Kid Cudi and tasty Thai Chili potato chips and were rolling down the road through farmlands and wineries, some of which had ostriches for no real particular reason (maybe they pick the grapes). You also pass the township of Kayamandi, traditional home to poorer workers from the various vineyards- it’s very strange to see it nestled into a place as rustic and posh as Stellenbosch.

Once we arrive at the Doornbosch park and ride, we head towards the main tent to purchase our day passes, festival vouchers, and complimentary wine glasses for R150. We also get a bunch of free stickers, saying things from “Serious Spitter” to “vyn fundi” (I know a lot about wine) to “Taste With Care”. From the park and ride, you can take shuttles on various routes to the wineries of your choice. The main station is a funny combination of white tents and couches that you imagine popping up at a P. Diddy party, free sushi and massages, lounge music, and burgers from Spur, a lovely Native American themed restaurant that is everywhere in South Africa. Not to mention the Exclusiloos- the nicest port-a-potties you will ever see, with clean rooms and very nice scents. I don’t know how you get into the luxury mobile restroom business but these guys have their system down.

We jump on the shuttle and get to Lanzerac, the oldest vineyard in Stellenbosch, at 9:30 in the morning. Luckily I had a big breakfast in the morning to counter what would come next. Here, you could taste 5 different wines and enjoy some chocolates. The pinotage (apparently a specialty in South Africa) was marvelous, as was a honey liquer which was literally honey with the after taste of alcohol- thick as maple syrup but 26% alcohol. We had a nice talk with the woman at the bar since we were the only people there and enjoyed some chocolates with our lovely red wine. Because we were the only people there, we also got to do a barrel tasting- tasting wines from barrels in various stages of maturation. Depending on what stage it was, you could taste the oaken flavor of the barrels or the grape picking up its acidity and color.

Technically, you aren’t really supposed to drink the wine at a tasting- you sip, take in the aroma and flavor, then spit and cleanse the palate with water. Oops. By the time we left, we had somewhere around 8-10 small glasses of wine. We also managed to finagle a tour of the cellar, seeing the dark rooms where the barrels are aged to the large steel vats where they finish. Afterwards we took a stroll outside to look at the countryside and the surrounding mountains. The vineyard has a smart tactic of planting special trees next to the vines so that they can test it for disease before it affects the grapes. And all the while, we talked with the tour guide from Botswana and took hipster pictures in front of grapes and barrels and sunny landscapes.

Jump on the bus at 10:30 and we’re off to winery #2- Neil Ellis. Whereas Lanzerac is old, rustic, like a really nice leather chair, Neil Ellis is minimalist but cutting edge, spacious and sunny but not overwhelming. It is intentionally understated. Here we could have 5 more wines as we sat tableside to the sunny fields of Stellenbosch. It was like a South African Sound of Music- I could imagine running with Julie Andrews wine-drunk and singing ridiculous songs to fight off the Nazis.

The three of us were just inhaling wines, even forgetting what glasses we had in front of us. The manager of the vineyard was a younger guy, but very educated about his wine (his father owns it) and would even give us extra wine other than our 5 to let us taste “better vintages” than the ones they originally offered. Quynh was clearly getting redder and eating an entire dish of olives by herself, while Dmitry and I feasted on breadsticks and talked about the nightlife in Pretoria and Cape Town. And the hipster pictures continued (with even our disposable camera coming out for cameos).

Winery #3 is Zorgvilet, a much more happening winery with a grill, food, and a guy dressed as a purple monster (no idea why, but I was drunk and I approved). Dmitry and I bought some more hot dogs and continued to taste wines. Here, there were multiple brands selling, so obviously we had to try all of them. Had we made it through all of them, we would have tasted 15 in total. I think I made it to somewhere between 6 and 8 before I decided to climb into a tree and wait for the shuttle. Afterwards we get back to Doornbosch and wolf down aforementioned Spur burgers. Carnivorous alcoholism.

We then made the wise decision to go to a station where Dmitri had heard you could taste 60 wines. Like we needed 60 more wines. But this was Bottleary Hills Center- essentially the Super WalMart (here it would be called WalMart Hyper) of wine and olives. Both floors were stocked with fridges of wine and all sorts of good stuff, which we proceeded to taste. It was around this time that we met a large group of South African college kids who went to U. Stellenbosch. We made friends and added them to our merry bunch and decided to go together to Bellevue Wine Estate.

(A note about U. Stellenbosch. It’s a very conservative, white Afrikaans school in the countryside. Classes are conducted in Afrikaans. It’s seen as a huge party school and many kids barely pass their classes if they don’t drop out. They also can major in winemaking and have a famous wine-tasting society. But it’s a pretty sweet school).

Quynh had been really excited about Bellevue because they had tractor rides (her Midwestern-ness really picks fun times to come out). As we go around the estate, there are nice benches and a cat as we sample a few of their wines (I’ve lost count at this point). We soon get the call for tractor rides, and all of us jump onto a huge wagon that takes us out into their vineyard.

If anyone knows the song “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, this would have been the time for that song to be blasting, or for all of us to magically appear with banjos and guitars and large objects that can be used as percussion instruments and play it. A bunch of college students, most nicely dressed for a wine tasting (even I will admit I threw on a nice collared shirt and had my aviators on for this day) taking pictures of one another as an old man explained his cultivation of grapes to us. EPIC. You could see mountains, valleys, fields, blue skies- it was the field of Elysia (or even just the fields that Maximus walks to in his death visions in Gladiator).

When we got back to the center, the Stellenbosch kids talk about watching the World Cup game at a bar, which we all agree to. From Bottleary Hills, we all have to get back to Doornbosch where are cars are. But of course, we can’t just go. Malie tells me I need to help her pick out some wines for the trip, so we grab a few R30 bottles with nice labels.

Literally, this trip should take no longer than 10 minutes. But we all have complimentary wine glasses and a bunch of bottles of wine (including a nice one I had picked up at Neil Ellis). The bus ends up being filled with 2 groups- ours, and another South African girl and her girlfriends all about our age celebrating the main girl’s birthday. As we drive off, everyone is just standing up, dancing to music, and pouring one another glasses of wine. We don’t even know these people and we’re just getting our drank on. Epicureanism at it’s finest. Bacchus would be proud.

At Bellevue we had discussed our need to watch the game (especially Dmitri and another Brazilian guy Manah, who needed to ensure that Argentina didn’t win or else the apocalypse would blow up all the favelas in Brazil). We end up going to a sports bar very late in the game, and all shocked that Germany is giving such an ass-kicking to Argentina (Why Maradona didn’t give Mascherano any help in the defensive midfield or Messi any help to free him up forward still boggles me). And somehow, I’ve ended up with a beer, which I don’t remember ordering but I still take it on. We’re now even drunker and now hungrier, so we all head to a pizza place called Sgt. Pepper’s which has gourmet pizza.

At this point, I’m sort of in a wine-induced daze. Some of you know the feeling- you know where you are but you don’t really but you do. We all caravan there and start eating, which from my memory I was doing pretty ferociously. I also do not remember paying for said meal. By this time, I’m exhausted from drinking wine all day and I start dozing off. But Pierre (Dmitri’s host mom’s son and Quynh and I’s acquaintance from a few weeks ago through Patsy) arrives, looking to bring our second wind. At some point Pierre throws napkins in my face and pours sugar on my head for catching me dozing off. But we persist. And soon it is declared that there shall be a house party at Chris’s (one of the guys from Stell who has been hitting on Quynh the entire night).

Of course, since we have had all the wine, we need to get even more alcohol. And of course it’s late, so most Stellenbosch liquor stores are closed. That’s when Pierre and I get the bright idea to go into Kayamandi and buy liquor. That’s right- we went into the townships to buy liquor. Dmitri had never seen the townships before and was intrigued by it all. We all head in and buy brandy and coke from a heavily gated place where Pierre points out a guy who will bring you where you need to buy liquor at 4 am.

The house party has started by the time the 3 of us get there. Quynh is surrounded by dudes, and I accompany (not really partake) Dmitri outside so he can smoke some stuff he has procured from the Stell kids. We watch the Spain/Paraguay game outside and everything is fantastic. Though some of my favorites from Stell leave, the rest of us head to a nightclub called Catwalk.

Now I’m already wary of places called Catwalk because of its namesake in New Haven, which is a strip club that I’ve heard very unsavory things about (including a friend who paid a stripper to go home because he felt bad that she had to strip). The place was typical of a lot of club experiences I have had in Cape Town- the music is a strange mix of hip hop, followed by really hard and intense techno, followed by something like the Counting Crows. It’s like someone used iPod shuffle but on a schizophrenic’s music collection. Again, my luck with the ladies has bottomed out and, when I’m just tired of being there, I end up sitting next to a practically comatose Dmitri, who is now feeling the effects of South African weed and is sitting like a gargoyle with a hood on a bench. Combined with the fact that the club is kinda seedy and the bouncer is a very old man, Catwalk is not for me.

After indicating to Pierre that Dmitri looks dead, we drive him back to Pierre’s house (where all of us are spending the night), while Quynh is being entertained by the other guys. When we go back to pick up Quynh, I imagine that we are done for the night and that we’re all just going home. But Pierre has other plans.

We instead go to another sort of shady place that Pierre says is a big deal that we’re going to. What it ends up being- a soekkie party. A frickin soekkie partie. For those who don’t know, the soekkie (pronounced socky/sucky) is a dance that Afrikaans kids usually do which is essentially doing waltz/ballroom steps to loud pop music. And is usually done in socks to help with gliding. So imagine some big burly kids doing spins and dips- that’s what we were witnessing. Somehow we take more shots with Pierre and just chill there for a while as he meets up with some of his friends from the STell hockey (read: field hockey) team. It’s a big deal for Pierre to be at one of these because he is colored, and this is traditionally a white thing to do. After being there for a while, Pierre is hungry and heads to the gas station with some of his friends for some food.

It is there that I see another glorious late night South African creation- the chip chow. A chow is similar to a Gatsby in that is essentially a loaf of bread with lots of crap in it. The chow uses a square/rectangular piece of bread, something like ciabatta, and scoops out some of the inside and then puts in the fillings (a bunny chow, made in Durban, is this but with curry instead). Meats, cheeses, vegetables, and of course, chips (fries) get stuffed in the sandwich. Had I not just consumed bottles and bottles of wine, I would have loved to eat it. But my stomach was not in a place to do this, so I refrained and looked on longingly at his sandwich. As we sat outside, Pierre was just belligerent and ranting about hockey and women and race relations (it always comes up). Some of his friends left to go drink more at a field at a winery somewhere, while we finally headed home. 3:30 am.