The great thing is that you do not need to order any coffee when you have breakfast here, you can just have some pinotage and thokozani…probably a good commercial concept but I do not like it

Pinotage Truffles mmm…….Looking forward to the Pinotage on Tap!

Amazing pinotage….

Lovely setting! I like the community involvement with Thokozani – makes for a nicer taste. The tasting room is a little cramped, but the wine makes up for it. We arrived early in the morning and were greeted enthusiastically. The pinotage truffles and wine experience is highly recommended. It’s a nice day out and if you like the wine, it’s worth the trip.

Was so looking forward to visiting Diemersfontein and was actually rather disapointed with the experience. Yes the wine farm is out of this world; so beautiful. And yes the wines are delicious; but I knew that. The tasting room was dull; the tasting assistant not offering much assistance or information. I loved the empowerment iniative and actually my favourite wine was the blend from Thokozani. We had lunch in the Seasons reataurant which was cheaply decorated and felt like I was eating in a canteen; the food tasted as much as well. All in all a little over rated.

We experienced a fun day at Diemersfontein. The tasting assistant was in no hurry and we had to entertain ourselves in order to pass time – turned out to be a good thing.

I have not been to Diemersfontein, yet. Booked the other day for Pinotage on Tap on 24 October and I can not wait! I tasted the Pinotage at WineX in Cape Town and it was absolutely outstanding!

I went to Diemersfontein for a wine tasting and lunch, its a beautiful place in a very nice setting.

Loved the pinotage!!!!

The pinotage is obviously a cult-classic (can highly recommend the JHB launch festival), and the Heaven’s Eye and Goshoawk’s Chant reds are great too!

Nice wine, great viognier, reasonabled price, nice restaurant, not overley expensive, great food

Thikozani range not bad at all

Wellington may not be the most beautiful town in the Boland, but the surroundings are certainly breathtaking. The Limietberg mountains form a spectacular backdrop to what used to be the inbred cousin of Boland towns – none of the beautiful buildings of a Stellenbosch or Franschoek – all the downtown squalor of a Wolsely or Paarl.

Since I left school there in 1992 (the source of my somewhat biased view of the place) the town has fortunately undergone a slight revolution, with the Cape Technikon establishing a satelite campus. This has created a slight student vibe in a place where you used to be ostracised for having dirty thoughts on a Sunday. The road out of town towards the Bain’s Kloof pass is a natural wonder, with vineyards stretching towards the mountains and lavish homesteads waiting to be discovered by those who like to venture off the main roads and have no fear of shotgun-toting farmers. At least that’s how I remember it.

Unfortunately for Diemersfontein, they’re situated on the other side of town, right next to a squatter camp and bordering on a desolate stretch of bluegum trees.

Fortunately for Diemersfontein, people don’t really go there for the view. They come for the wine, and more specifically the Pinotage. Diemersfontein launched their now famous – some might say infamous – chocolate and coffee Pinotage in 2001. Since then it has won a Trophy at the Michelangelo International Wine Trophy for best Pinotage, silver at the Wine Style Asia, Silver in Nova Scotia, Michelangelo Gold for the 2006. In April 2007, Neil Pendock christened it “The People’s Pinotage” after his consumer survey in the South African Sunday Times found that it was the “overwhelming favourite” of all Pinotages.

So it certainly isn’t the well-kept secret it once was. Bertus Fourie, the creator of this distinctive wine, has since been lured to KWV, where he is producing their Cafe Culture Pinotage, a wine that bears a striking resemblance to the Diemersfontein variety. I was told by the lady conducting our tasting that Diemersfontein isn’t too bothered by the competition, as it is firstly Mr Fourie’s recipe and secondly they believe their wine is still of a higher quality.

Be that as it may, this is certainly a wine that should be tried by every wine lover in the country, and is bound to start some heated debate around dinner tables. Some people accuse Diemersfontein of dumbing down wine to suit uncultured palates, while others vehemently defend the wine.

I fall into the second category. While it is certainly an easy drinking wine that doen’t require any aging, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Snobbery has long been a blight on wine culture in this country – the insistence that enjoying wine is the right of those affluent and ‘educated’ enough to appreciate it. If Diemersfontein’s ‘unsophisticated’ Pinotage turns more people into wine lovers I’m all for it.

Having arrived at the farm an hour before closing we didn’t have time to sample the restaurant and blitzed through a quick tasting. The tasting room is functional but a touch cramped, and on a scorching summer’s day it wasn’t the ideal place to be. Nonetheless I was impressed with the service and we were even offered a taste of wines that had ostensibly sold out already.

I bought a bottle of Malbec, a wine I find all too rarely in South Africa, which I plan to have in a couple of years, a bottle of Heaven’s Eye which is a lovely blend albeit a bit young to drink now, and a healthy stock of the Pinotage. At R75 a bottle it certainly isn’t cheap (in fact I found it for the same price at the Midmar Liquor store in the Foreshore, making a mockery of the idea that it is cheaper to buy from the farm.)

In summation, great wines, ordinary atmosphere and location.