Cheese and Wine tasting at Fairview

Fairview wine estate is located in the Paarl wine region of the Western Cape.  I recently had the opportunity to do a bit of barrel tasting during a wine festival in Autumn.  Fairview also specializes in cheese, especially goat’s cheese which are delicious.  If you’re traveling on the Cape Wine Route, this is one wine estate you just have to visit!

I love buying Fairview cheese in the shops and I’ve always been curious about the farm itself.  It’s an easy drive from Cape Town or Stellenbosch, no more than an hour at the most.  Because we went during the Paarl Ommiberg Festival, we had a few tastings included.  We started of with the barrel tastings of some of the blends they produce on the estate.  I really enjoyed the Extrano blend of Spanish Tempranillo, Grenache and Caringan.  We also had the opportunity to taste these cultivars separately and in my opinion the Tempranillo was the most delicious and smooth.

We tasted a whole bunch of cheeses including brie, cream cheese, smoked cheese all made from goat’s milk.  They also have a delicious and very popular soft cheese with cranberries, which kind of reminded me of ice cream on my first taste.  I ended up buying a wedge of smoked brie goat’s cheese and another wedge of a cheese they call ‘Leeuwenhoek’.

After our tastings we decided to have a late lunch at their restaurant.  We had a snack board for a starter where after I had the beef carpaccio, which was tasty and fresh with a sharp zing of lemon juice.  We had the Fairview 2013 Shiraz with our meal and it complemented my dish perfectly.  I also enjoy the Fairview Chardonnay, as it is very dry and crisp.

A visit to Fairview makes for a great day out and the venue is child friendly with lots of cute goats to go around.  The tastings are delicious and well presented by the staff.  The food of the restaurant is average priced but the quality is great.  I use a lot of Fairview’s cheeses in my home cooking which you can find at most of the big retail supermarkets in South Africa.  Buying cheese at the farm was a bit cheaper than in the shops and with a lot more variety.  I enjoy the earthy tastes of their wines too and was impressed on how they’ve incorporated the Spanish Tempranillo into their blends.