Grape expectations

In 1925, the South African vintner Abraham Perold made the momentous decision to cross a hermitage (cinsaut) vine with a pinot noir. In the process, he created pinotage, the only wine varietal that is unique to South Africa. Quite why he chose to match the source of the great burgundies with an anonymous blending grape like the hermitage was never recorded, but he planted the seeds and left his garden to grow wild. The hybrid vines flourished in the balmy South African climate and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 1925, the South African vintner Abraham Perold made the momentous decision to cross a hermitage (cinsaut) vine with a pinot noir. In the process, he created pinotage, the only wine varietal that is unique to South Africa. Quite why he chose to match the source of the great burgundies with an anonymous blending grape like the hermitage was never recorded, but he planted the seeds and left his garden to grow wild. The hybrid vines flourished in the balmy South African climate and the rest, as they say, is history.

In fact, South Africa has a longer history of wine-making than many people realise. The first grape vines were planted in Cape Town by Dutch commander Jan van Riebeeck way back in 1655. At the time, red wine was believed to prevent scurvy and the Dutch relied on huge quantities of the stuff to keep their maritime aspirations afloat.

The first South African wines were designed for storage rather than flavour, but things improved markedly under van Riebeeck's successor, Simon van der Stel. Part explorer and part connoisseur, van der Stel established the first large-scale vineyard at Constantia in 1695, exporting South African wines as far afield as Holland, France, Britain, Russia and the new world. Wine production exploded across the Cape peninsula. Today, there are 200 vineyards within two hours' drive of Cape Town.

Officially, the Cape Winelands stretch from Wellington and Paarl in the north, through Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, to Somerset West and Gordons Bay in the south. However, more than a dozen areas around Cape Town have been classified as "wine-growing regions". Visually, the Winelands are stunning. Everywhere you look there are lush green vineyards squeezed onto the foothills of rocky mountains and white-washed Dutch colonial buildings where the wine-making magic actually takes place.

One of the oldest wine-producing areas is Stellenbosch, about 45km east of Cape Town at the foot of the Hottentots Holland mountains. The settlement was established by the Dutch in 1685 to supply Cape Town with wheat, but viticulture soon took over as the main industry. Today, the picturesque old town is surrounded more than 20 vineyards, including Spier, arguably the largest and most commercial vineyard in the western Cape.

As an indication of the scale of operations at Spier, the estate has a luxury hotel, two restaurants, a wine-tasting centre, delicatessen, craft market, amphitheatre, cheetah-petting zoo and private steam train that ferries tourists from a dedicated station in central Cape Town. It's about as commercial as wine-tasting can be, but the vineyard was selected for the Pinotage Association's Top 10 Pinotage awards in 2004, so I feel duty-bound to give it a try.

The wine-tasting itself is a slickly organised affair. Housed in an elegant Dutch gabled barn, the Spier Wine Centre boasts a huge emporium selling wines from all over South Africa. Tasters pay a fixed fee to sample just the Spier wines or a selection of wines from around the Cape. The estate also offers the Disney-esque Spier Wine Experience, an hour-long classroom wine-tasting and wine-appreciation session. In peak season, the centre dishes out samples to some 700 visitors a day.

Committed wine-tasters politely spit every drop back into the spittoon on the bar, but most of the tasters at Spier (myself included) clearly enjoy wine too much to forfeit a drop on the grounds of etiquette. I select five wines from the Spier range - a sauvignon blanc, a chardonnay, a chenin blanc, a shiraz and the Spier pinotage - and swirled, sniffed and swallowed every sip.

Most vineyards in the Cape age their wines in French oak barrels, giving the wines a distinctive woody flavour. Oak is common to most new world wines, but it can be an acquired taste, particularly if you are used to French and German plonk. Cape reds tend to be more rounded than Cape whites, but I definitely prefer the peppery Spier shiraz to the rather plummy and leathery pinotage.

After the razzmatazz of Spier, it is time for something a little more down-to-earth. About 30km north of Spier, down a dirt road on the outskirts of Paarl, Seidelberg Estate is a small, family-owned vineyard that produces a pinotage and a respectable family of reds and whites under the Seidelberg and De Leuwen Jagt (The Lion Hunt) labels. It also has one of the best settings in the Winelands, with sweeping views across a vine-filled valley to the Simonsberg mountains.

The estate was built in classic Dutch colonial style in 1692, and the lawns in front of the manor house are covered in giant oaks, left behind from a failed attempt to produce locally-grown wine barrels (apparently, oak trees grow too fast in the tropical South African climate, resulting in porous barrels).

The tasting begins with a tour of the cellars and fermentation vats, where a team of workers are busy unloading the last of the 2005 chardonnay harvest. Then we head underground to the brick-lined tasting cellar for a sample of the house wines. Tasting at Seidelberg is informal - you can sample any wine that takes your fancy - so I work my way through the wine list from white to red, finishing with the house pinotage. The red muscadel - an inexplicably unfashionable sweet desert wine - is the highlight, making for an unsteady journey onwards to my next alcoholic appointment.

Now, most people like a drop of wine. Wine-tasting is one of life's simple pleasures. But bathing in it? Set in a private vineyard about 5km south of Seidelberg, the luxurious Santé Winelands spa is the first place in South Africa to offer vinotherapy, an innovative treatment that exploits the natural antioxidant qualities of wine. According to Santé's head therapist Dr Geraldine Mitton, wine grapes are packed with antioxidants, including polyphenol proanthocyanidin, said to protect the skin from the negative effects of ageing.

Anyone who has spent time at a luxury spa will recognise the core components of vinotherapy. At various stages, the treatment involves exfoliating scrubs, massage, nourishing wraps and hydrotherapy. The difference in vinotherapy is that every stage uses something derived from grapes. The Santé spa is styled like a Roman villa, which fits in neatly with the grapes and wine theme.

My therapy begins with an exfoliating "shiraz body scrub", a vigorous scouring and pummelling with crushed shiraz grape seeds in grape seed oil. This is followed by a "chardonnay cocoon wrap", where I am slathered with mud and pulped chardonnay grapes and wrapped up in cling film, before being immersed in a water-filled rubber cocoon. The grande finale is the "cabernet sauvignon wine casket", a soothing - indeed soporific - bath infused with red wine and grape juice, accompanied by stimulating red lights, pulsing magnetic fields and a relaxing Indian head massage.

My skin certainly feels smooth and supple after the treatment, but it is hard to judge whether the effects of ageing have truly been reversed. It could just have been the relaxing effects of blissfully doing nothing for three and a half hours.

Having toured vineyards, tasted at vineyards and detoxed at a vineyard, it seems logical to finish off by staying in a vineyard. Steenberg is one of five Dutch-era wineries in the beautiful Constantia Valley, about 40km south-west of Santé Winelands on the opposite side of Cape Town, and the 17th-century estate buildings have been converted into a glorious five-star hotel. Rooms are decked out in period style and some have private terraces with breathtaking views over rolling vineyards and looming mountains. On top of this, the Steenberg golf course is said to be one of South Africa's finest.

Sadly, it is a little late in the day for a round of golf or a formal wine-tasting, but I manage to squeeze in a casual tasting of Steenberg's award-winning reserve sauvignon blanc at the bar before dinner.

Needless to say, after a day of wine and pampering, I sleep like a baby.

Vineyards

Featured estates

Spier (00 27 21 809 1100; www.spier.co.za) Lynedoch Road, Stellenbosch. Spier is open for wine-tasting from 10am to 4pm daily; it costs R10 (90p) for Spier wines, R18 (£1.60) for Cape wines and R30 (£2.70) for the Spier Wine Experience. The Spier train runs on set dates monthly from Spier Monument Station in Cape Town to the Spier Estate; return tickets cost R100/R50 (£9/£4.50) per adult/child.

Seidelberg Wine Estate (00 27 21 863 5200; www.seidelberg.co.za) Suid Agter Paarl Road, Paarl. The estate is open for wine-tasting from 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday; tasting costs R10 (90p), or R15 (£1.40) with a cellar tour.

Santé Winelands Hotel and Wellness Centre (00 27 21 875 8100; www.santewellness.co.za) Simonsvlei Road, Klapmuts, Paarl. The Wellness Centre spa is open from 6am to 9pm daily. Entry costs R250 (£23) per day for general use of spa facilities; vinotherapy costs R1,240 (£113). Single/double rooms at the hotel cost from R1,985 (£180).

Steenberg Hotel (00 27 21 713 2222; www.steenberghotel.com) Tokai Road, Constantia, Cape Town. Double rooms start at R1,685 (£153), including breakfast; wine-tasting, golf and other activities are extra.

To book tours, try the Wine Desk (00 27 21 405 4550; winedeskwaterfront.co.za) at the Cape Town Tourism Office, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

Other vineyards

There are 200 vineyards around Cape Town. John Platter's South African Wine Guide, updated annually, lists the best vintages. Some excellent vineyards include:

Boschendal (00 27 21 870 4272; www.boschendal.com) near Franschhoek offers Dutch-era charm and gourmet picnics on the lawn, courtesy of the Le Pique-Nique restaurant. It was voted South African Wine Producer of the Year in the 2004 International Wine and Spirit Competition.

Fairview (00 27 21 863 2450; www.fairview.co.za) near Paarl produces goats- and cows'-milk cheeses as well as a tasty range of pinotage, shiraz, semillon and blended wines.

Klein Constantia (00 27 21 794 5188; www.kleinconstantia.com) at Constantia has the most famous pedigree of any South African vineyard. It's best known for its Vin de Constance dessert wine, quaffed by Napoleon, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

Vergelegen (00 27 21 847 1334; www.vergelegen.co.za) in Somerset West, founded by Willem Adriaan van der Stel, is almost a stately home, with magnificent mountain views.

Lanzerac (00 27 21 886 5641; lanzeracwines.co.za) near Stellenbosch is a huge Dutch-style winery that produced South Africa's first pinotage. These days, the focus has shifted to whites.

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