Vondeling now just up the road from Fairview and Spice Route
IF YOUR WINERY is fairly off the beaten track, perhaps your tasting room isn’t attracting quite as many guests as you’d like and you want to bolster your public profile, to take things to the next level, why not relocate where you do your entertaining? The Vondeling farm is in that corner of Paarl called Voor-Paardeberg, just ‘over the hill’ from Paardeberg proper in the Swartland, but the Vondeling tasting room is now on the slopes of Paarl Rock Mountain! Owners Julian Johnsen and Anthony Ward have moved the ‘front of house’ to their Vrymansfontein farm on the Suid-Agter Paarl Road – before you get to Landskroon Wine Estate, Spice Route and Fairview if approaching from the R44/Stellenbosch.
For many years, Charles Back’s wine and cheese (and goat) outfit at Fairview has been the main drawcard in this area of the Cape winelands. He opened the now as-successful Spice Route Destination next door on feeling the need for a more visitor-friendly home for the brand relative to where the Spice Route wines originated outside Malmesbury in the Swartland. And/but now the various attractions at Fairview and the SR Destination have some serious competition in the immediate vicinity.
After taking the turnoff to Vrymansfontein, a long driveway takes you up to a carpark from where you walk past a lawn to the Vondeling Tasting Bar and deck, the outdoor Tree Bar as well as the ‘Scape’ restaurant with tables indoors and out – all with a panoramic view stretching from the Wemmershoek and Simonsberg mountains on your left across to Table Mountain in the distance on your right. At Scape, expect “sophisticated shared plates dining”. At the Tree Bar: “Think Lebanese style mezze, delicious finger food and refreshing, zesty salads.” Among the highlights on the winelist: the white blend Babiana, Bowwood Pinotage, the red blend Philosophie so highly rated in Platter’s South African Wine Guide of late, and the Méthode Ancestrale bubbly called Rurale. (Open Wednesday to Sunday, there’s also a Children’s Area…)
