Helderberg Wine Farms

Uva Mira is high on the Helderberg above Stellenbosch, and the tasting room makes no secret of why you are there. The estate describes the view as taking in False Bay, Table Bay and Table Mountain at once, and few places in the Winelands can claim all three.

The wines are cool-climate and the altitude shows in them. Tastings run from the six-wine Mira Collection to a dedicated Cabernet Franc experience, and the food is artisanal platters and cheese boards rather than a full restaurant. It suits an afternoon rather than a meal.

Idiom sits in the heart of the Helderberg range above Somerset West and grows things almost nobody else here grows. Barbera, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese and Zinfandel are all in the cellar alongside the Bordeaux varieties, which makes a tasting here genuinely unfamiliar rather than a variation on the usual.

The tasting building is low, modern and glass-fronted, set at the edge of a slope so the land falls away behind it. There is a restaurant open every day with a three-course dinner on Friday evenings, and an eco-safari drive that goes out through the vineyards and fynbos to a game reserve at the foot of the mountain.

Longridge is on the Helderberg’s southern slopes and farms organically and biodynamically, making its wines without commercial yeasts and without filtration. That is a working method rather than a label, and it is the reason to come.

The kitchen follows the same logic, taking vegetables from the estate’s own gardens and working with organic and free-range produce. There is a wine lounge, and a lawn that catches the late light across the vineyards. It is the estate on this list to choose when how the wine was made is the point.

Vergelegen was founded on the first of February 1700 and has been restored steadily since 1987, with the same layered approach applied to the gardens as to the buildings. The result is a series of garden areas running from generous to intimate, including an octagonal garden and rose planting, arranged around the historic core of the estate.

Gardens and heritage sit alongside the wines as a named part of the estate rather than an afterthought, and there is a heritage tour if you want the history properly told. There is more than one restaurant. Of the nine this is the one where you could spend a morning without going into a tasting room at all.

Lourensford has been an estate since 1709 and now runs as something closer to a small destination than a tasting room with a view. There is a specialty coffee roastery, a market, art, gardens, restaurants, and cycling and trail-running routes across the property.

It is the busiest of these three at weekends and the one most likely to suit a group that wants different things from the same morning. One thing to know before you plan around it: the estate asks visitors not to bring their own food or drink and to use the businesses on site instead, which is unusual here and worth knowing in advance.

Cavalli is on the R44 and was built rather than inherited, which makes it the architectural outlier of the nine. The design, the indigenous gardens and the art are treated as part of what is on offer alongside the wine, and there is a public gallery and a boutique on the property.

The restaurant looks out across the estate, and Cavalli keeps serious equestrian facilities, which is where the name comes from. It suits somebody who wants a contemporary Winelands afternoon rather than a Cape Dutch one.

Morgenster puts olive alongside wine in its own navigation, which tells you how the estate sees itself. It makes award-winning extra virgin olive oil as well as Bordeaux-style reds and a range of Italian varieties, and the two run together rather than one being a sideline.

The setting is quiet, beneath the Helderberg with olive groves and wetland around it, and there is an Italian restaurant on the property. Of the nine it is the one to choose when you want somewhere unhurried rather than somewhere busy.

Waterford is in the Blaauwklippen Valley and its cellar is built around a courtyard, so you can see the winery working from where you are sitting. The Wine and Chocolate experience is what it is known for and the reason most people book.

Beyond that there are vertical tastings from the cellar collection and The Jem experience, named for the flagship red, with guided cellar tours if you want the process explained. The room is deliberately intimate rather than large, which makes it a better fit for two than for eight.

Eikendal sits on the R44 with vineyard rows running straight out toward the Helderberg, and it is the smallest operation in this guide. The pairing it is known for is cheesecake: three of them, each matched to an Eikendal wine, and bookings are essential for it.

There are also standard and vertical tastings, a cellar tour, Italian cooking on the estate and a small lodge if the afternoon runs long. It is a slower and less formal stop than most of the nine, which is rather the point of it.