I loved the goats, the tasting experience - not so much!

Usually when I don’t enjoy a tasting, I don’t write about it.  Today I am making an exception, mostly because I was really looking forward to this winery.

Fairview may be the best known South African brand, let alone winery in the United States due to the very successful “Goats do Roam” brand.  Each wine is a fun play on words of a similar French regional wine and goats.  For example, they market; Goat Door, Goats in Villages, Bored Doe, Goat-Roti and the Goatfather.  Many of these wines are widely distributed in the United States.  I was sure I would find similarly fun people and all kinds of fun T-shirts, hats and other branding.  This was not the case at all.

I arrived at their giant tasting room ten minutes before closing and was told I could not taste as I had missed the last call cutoff.  What!  I explained this was our last day in Cape Town and was told I should have come earlier, but that I could taste one wine.  I probably would have been ok with that, but I was really put off by the mean-spirited demeanor of our hostess.  Our tour guide cleverly ordered a tasting as well, so now I was up to two wines.  I picked the two most expensive on the list - Shiraz and Chakalaka.  I tasted the mediocre wines and probably was to upset to give an unbiased tasting, so I won’t report it here.  Fairview had no souvenirs for sale - I was told it was because of their focus on the “wine”.  I don’t know what they were focused on, but it wasn’t customer service.  At least the goats enjoyed a good tasting.

The cheese tasting was wonderful, it went on until everyone was finished - I started 20 minutes after closing and that wasn’t a problem.  I had an amazingly good goat gouda!

I will leave you with one of the most famous images in South Africa the goat tower at Fairview - if you like cheese, give it a try - else, skip it and you are welcome to my picture.