How to make wine tasting fun for the whole family
Small humans tend to be more into terrorising than terroir but fear not, for in this delightful French Hugenot heritage town in the Cape Winelands, there’s fun to be had for the whole crew as the grown-ups Sip Sip Hooray.
Step 1: Pick your route
With the railed-bound wine tram joined by a fleet of wine tram-busses able to reach further out, there are a huge range of farms to choose from. Franschhoek Wine Trams operates various line choices, so the best way to choose is have a look at which farms would be your top picks and find a line that includes a few of them. I picked the GREEN LINE as it included most of the particularly family-friendly stops, and farms close to Franschhoek town (where we were staying) – although it was definitely not the only family-friendly option!
Step 2: Map out how you want your day to run
Tickets are pre-purchased or bought at the station and the tram lines are hop on/hop off. Once you have your route chosen, work out where you want to stop for lunch and your timings for the different stops. The Green Line includes 8 farms but we chose only 3 to stop at which was very do-able with our young kids in town (ages 5, 2, 2 and 3 months) although we could have managed a 4th.
Also, if you’re in a group not everyone has to start at the same time – we met up with half our travel crew on the tram after the first stop as that’s just how life was rolling!
How our day ran:
10h30 We departed from the Franschhoek Terminal at 10h30 (first tram left at 9h30).
There’s great coffee one can buy at the terminal (very NB) and we were surprised with a bonus tasting on the tram itself as we departed!
10h40 First Stop! Grande Provence.
From the tram and onto a tractor – toddler was ecstatic!
Getting him off the tractor so mom & dad could taste wine, not as easy.
There are four tasting options: we did the TRAM TASTING (4 wines, R120)
The tastings are enjoyed in a beautiful courtyard, with fountains trickling. This farm doesn’t have much for the kiddos but we figured we could squeeze in a more adult one at the top of the day (and survived (toddlers almost in the fountain of course)).
Not too much time to cradle that wine though as one must hop back on the tractor and get back to the tram stop an hour from when it dropped you.
12h00 Stop 2: Franschhoek Cellar
Interestingly this wine is available at my local supermarket in Hong Kong. It’s very much that sort of export label and without kids I wouldn’t have stopped here (not that the wine is bad, it just pales in comparison to what is available in the region and the farms one could be sitting at). However, this place knows its calling: kids, people with kids, people who need their kids occupied and having a great time so they can have a great time. And they’re nailing it. With a huge fenced in playground, all the staff were so friendly when we arrived, offering to help play with the kids if we wanted, they also suggested we order lunch straight away and they would serve it once we were done with our tasting. Dads took one for the team here and offered to stay with the kiddies while my friend and I got to enjoy a quiet tasting and catch up together inside the tasting room. We used to all live together in Hong Kong before we respectively got married but with COVID travel restrictions had been unable to see each other since before my kids had been born – an uninterrupted catch up over wines was a dream. The dream here continued has both our 2 year olds napped in their strollers while we had lunch!
15h00(ish). Got the tram back to the terminal and onto the tram-bus for our last stop: Pigcasso.
(Yes, its a pig that paints). This is not a wine farm. It is a vegan animal rescue farm with a famous painting pig. With a beautiful barn where the animals can come up to you inside or choose themselves to venture out into the paddocks, one can purchase feed to give them a nibble. Kiddos absolutely loved it here. There is wine, we did have. Not the highlight haha. But a great stop with littles in tow.
I had been keen to try Atlas Swift (the previous farm on the route) but knew we needed a kid activity. There are 3 more on the list, ending with Holden Manz. If we had not been there the previous afternoon/evening we would have most likely added it on as an end to our trip – the rosé on this farm is actually the one we chose to serve at our wedding.
Next trip to this region I’m keen to do a route that includes Boschendal as this farm is extremely family friendly – although one could definitely have a full day of fun out there alone.
