We simply loved the Soetes en Sop (sweets and soup) experience along the Breedekloof Wine Route this past weekend (covering Rawsonville, Slanghoek, Goudini and Breede River). What a blast. The concept is really cool – visit the various wine farms in the area, taste their wines, get a cup of soup at each one, and then move on to the next location. And it’s REALLY good value. For R160 (R110 for drivers and under 18’s) you can taste 5 wines at each farm and enjoy a cup of soup. There are also a variety of food stalls and trucks, activities for the kids, gin tasting, live music and a really festive atmosphere. Some groups were celebrating Christmas in July so they were really noticeable in their Christmas fancy dress.  There are 13 wine estates that participate (that means you can have 65 wine tasters on each of the two days!!) – that’s a LOT of tasting – you need to be committed.

The way it works is that you buy a ticket in advance and then you can start your tour at any of the participating cellars. They check your ticket, provide you with a tasting glass and a branded tin mug as well as 2 booklets of tickets – one for wine, one for soup. The ticket booklets cover both Friday and Saturday for all participating locations. And then you’re off on your merry way. Taste soup, taste wine, buy, move on….. repeat.

We’d suggest you plan a little route because there are way too many estates to cover in a day. We decided to focus on port and dessert wines because our stocks are running a little low and we visited 6 cellars, which was plenty. Everyone was in a fabulous mood (obviously) and the gees (spirit) was great – but you do need a bit of patience, as it gets quite busy. This is a wine area we don’t get to very often and we visited new places and tasted new wines. We’d highly recommend it for next year (or anytime in between).

To keep up to date with what’s happening in the valley, check out their webpage here and get a map here.

For info, we visited Badsberg, Bergsig, Slanghoek Cellar, Botha Wine Cellar, Lateganskop Cellar and Stofberg Family Vineyards. And tasted (and bought) Monks Gin and The Old N1 (fabulous in a ‘unicorn shimmer’ cocktail).