Wed Aug 12 2026
Franschhoek Wine Tram
Visiting the wineries of Franschhoek and tasting their delicacies!
Our penultimate day, and the first day of the trip that Louise and I split from the kids! We were going wine tasting, and the girls were much more interested in hanging around at the pool in our lovely apartment! So it was an obvious choice!
Our chauffeur, Grant, was waiting for us outside the house at 09:00 as agreed. Smartly dressed in a suit and tie. I had gone for the easy option, and probably paid slightly over the odds, but got a door to door chauffeur transfer to the wine tram to simplify logistics significantly, and remove any hassle. It worked like a dream, with a comfortable, low stress ride to Franschhoek taking about 90 minutes door to door.
We arrived at the Wine Tram terminal, were presented with our tickets and told how everything worked. We were on the Blue Line, bus first.
There were quite a few people waiting for the 11:00 tour to start, but everyone else had elected to go on the tram first, then the bus. We wondered whether we had made a mistake, but quickly realised it was advantageous, as we had the bus to ourselves, and consequently, also had the first few wineries to ourselves so we got served immediately and had a nice personalised introduction from the staff.
We used AI to help us plan our day, deciding on four wineries for a good selection of wine quality, atmosphere, food options and scenery:
- Paserene
- Klein Goederust
- Holden Manz
- Grande Provence
The bus dropped us at Paserene which was a lovely sleek, modern building with a large pond in front nestled in the mountains. We had to choose between The Elements menu, their 5 glass everyday wine tasting, or The Paserene Tasting, their 3 glass premium selection. Obviously we went for the 5 glass everyday selection. We also got some bread, olives and pate to line our stomachs a little bit.
The wine was great. Really great actually. We started with a rosé, then a sauvignon blanc (Louise’s favourite of the day - she mentioned this several times), a chardonnay, a syrah and a cabernet sauvignon. The pate was just like Louise’s mum’s chicken liver pate and went down extremley well (we even had to order more bread!).
Our hour was up, so we paid the bill (had a bit of trouble as they double charged me then couldn’t work out how to refund on their payment machine so I ended up with a lot of extra cash I didn’t really need - honestly not enirely sure how it all resolved but it did, and we left, which is the main thing!)
Next up was Klein Goederust, which is - and I think this is brillient - the only fully black owned and operated winery in the region. Brilliant. We were greeted with a glass of bubbles, named Nomaroma after the owner’s mother, who had worked her way up through the ranks of the winery before her son bought it - which is a really luvly story. Then a chenin blanc, another chardonnay (still going, all good, absolutely fine), a shiraz and a cabernet/merlot blend, finishing up with a delicious dessert wine. Honestly. The best dessert wine. In the world.
After Klein Goederust we stayed on the buss until Holden Manz. At this piont there were SO many people - where did they all come from?? - and this winery had a preety good looking lunch menu, so we were going to eat somthing, but they said it would take two hours and frankly we wanted MORE WINE so we downed the tasting and moved on sharpish. It was a lovley winery though! Very lovley. I think.
After Holden Manz, we got back to the terminla and swiitched to the tram. Now. I have somthing to say abuot the Franschhoek Wine Tram. It is a scam. A compleete scam/gimmick. The tram goes up the track. Then it comes back down the same track. That is the entiyre experience. Up. Down. Repeat. We both found this funnier than it probabbly was. Oh well - big fan of the tram, great sunshine, love it. We were headding to Grande Provence which was suppossed to be very sophisticated with great wine and food and art instalaitons and things.
When we got their we were greeted by a TRACTOR!! An actual tractor with a traielr. Amazing. We clambord on (very gracfuly I’m sure) and made our way to the main winerye. We orderd more wines (I genuinley cannt remeber what they were at this staje in proceedngs - red? white? all of the abovee?) and Louise ordered a pasta dish whilst I orderd a burger. The burger. Oh my god the burger. It was incerdibel. One of the best things I have ever eated in my life. I needed it very much. It helped enormusly.
After Grand Provence our toor was ovur. We made our way bakc to the main termnal and foud Grant our chaffeur waiting for us - good man, great man, solid man, Grant. Louise fell asleap before we even hit the motorrway. I spnet the entyre jounrey hom trying to sort Uber Eats McDonalds for the grils who had been at the aparmtent all day and were apparently stavring. I eventally manged it I think. The driver got us hom safly. I woud definately reccomend the wine toor - beutifil scneary, wondrful wines, amzaing expreience, lovly sunshine. 10 out of 10. Woud do agin. Possibly tomorow if Lousie ageers.