Paul, Carlos, and Samir were all headed out that morning so we said our goodbyes before we left on the tour. The tour guide picked us up right outside the backpackers and took us directly to the first vineyards. We had managed to convince Patrick and Dennis spend their last day on the tour with us rather than hiking up Table Mountain as, with the vicious winds that had been buffeting the city and the clouds that had been covering the plateau top over the last few days, they were liable to get blown off the mountain and wouldn’t be able to see anything even if they made it to the top. We turned out to be right; the countryside vineyard gave us a spectacular view of the city and mountain which was still capped in cloud.
For the tour, two South African tour guides took us and another group or tourists by five vineyards over the course of the day, teaching us about the history of the South African wine industry and how one properly samples wine with the 5 S’s (Sight, Smell, Sip, Savor, and something else).
It was at the third stop that the estate owner commented on Scooter, Erin, and Ann’s matching purple scarves that they had purchased earlier that week, asking if they were some sort of team. “Yeah,” responded a slightly buzzed Scooter, “Team Awesome.” “That’s such an American response,” he replied.
After a full day of sampling wine, our tour guides gave us a short quiz on wine industry trivia we had supposedly picked up on the tour. But while Patrick and Dennis got our team quite a few points for creativity, it was the other group that won the bottle of wine.
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