This mountain-ringed valley’s celebrated French character comes from the Huguenots, refugee French Protestants who settled here during the 17th-century Cape Dutch colonial period, bringing a strong wine culture with them.
A Culture of Food and Wine
Today it is a buzzy, sophisticated, multi-cultural hotspot for growing and making fine wine and food, with more eateries per square metre than anywhere else in the country.
Its modern vintners, the Vignerons de Franschhoek, are chasing wine quality by moving vines off the warm, sandy valley floor up onto the cooler slopes of the surrounding Groot and Klein Drakenstein and Franschhoek mountains.
And at the dawn of the new millennium, archaeological diggings added a fascinating, forward-looking and socio-economically important new dimension to the rich local history and culture.
At Boschendal the pace is leisurely, whether you’re sipping the latest vintage, taking tea, picnicking beneath the pines or dining under t...
A neuro-psychologist gathers archaeologists, historians, musicians and farm workers on his 17th-century wine farm, Solms-Delta to tell their...
At Terra del Capo is sophisticated wine farming, from scientific land cultivation to hi-tech cellar operations. But there’s room for beau...
Acclaimed South African mezzo-soprano Hanneli Rupert-Koegelenberg and husband Hein Koegelenberg cannot resist sharing their love of wine, mu...
Cape Dutch meets French Provençal and ethnic African in this haven of fine wine, food and art. Three hundred-year-old Grande Provence Herit...