South Africa
Delaire Graff Estate and Uva Mira Winery before heading back to the airport. Tons of wineries are located in Stellenbosch, so I had to pick and choose. De Morgenzon will have to wait until my next visit!
The Hottentots Holland Mountains make for some lovely views, with grapevines on the middle slopes and barren prominences of rock on the upper. Multiple varieties of grapes grow here, but at least by the tasting room and restaurants, Delaire Graff Estate seems to have all chardonnay grapes. Lunch at one of their two restaurants was pretty solid. Meaty oysters, a decent cured fish, and local filet mignon, combined with a glass of Delair Graff Botmaskop 2019, a fairly decent Bordeaux-style blend.
Next stop was Uva Mira Winery, located south rather than east of the town of Stellenbosch. They claim to be one of the highest elevation wineries in Stellenbosch, with a long drive up a narrow estate road to prove it, and they punctuate it with what looks like a grand estate house at the very end. Thought the views would be better here than at Delaire Graff, but turned out Delaire Graff was just as pretty, if not prettier, to my eyes. The chardonnay here was okay, the merlot and the cabernet sauvignon were both pretty good. To be fair, South African wines rarely impress me, and nothing today changed that impression for me-- although I would be more than happy to give all three red wines I tried today a second chance in the future.
Got back to Cape Town International Airport a tad earlier than I would have liked, but given all I would have done had I stayed out was more wine tasting, heading back to the airport seemed like the more prudent choice. The international terminal has great architecture in the upper level main ticketing hall, and the British Airways lounge (which United currently uses for their Polaris cabin passengers) is nice enough, although the buffet was in bad shape and it was borderline crowded. An unusual Ilyushin IL-76TD-90VD parked on the ramp within view of the lounge did make for a memorable stay.
The return flight, UA 2223, on N38950, an 8-year old 787-9 Dreamliner, was punctuated with over an hour's turbulence not long after climbing out of Cape Town. 70 minutes of bouncing up and down later, combined with a broken in-flight entertainment system, was not quite what I expected (although to the captain's credit, he did warn us!). At least the lamb curry dinner I ordered reheated well and didn't mind the 70 minute delay too much, although it had waaaaay too many cashews in it.