My wife and I had the absolute pleasure of being able to spend two days touring some handpicked Franschhoek wineries with the Franschhoek Vineyard Hopper back in late October.

We love Franschhoek and having visited several times we now feel acutely aware which wineries we prefer to stop in at and which wine we particularly enjoy thus this new service suited us perfectly. It is now our number one choice when booking wine tours in the area and I will now tell you why;

Assuming like us you enjoy drinking the wine as opposed to using the spittoon then by default the self-drive option is excluded. Therefore this leaves you with three main alternative options:

1. Book a small group wine tour
2. Book a private wine tour
3. Book the much lauded Franschhoek Wine Tram

The main drawback for me of a small group tour or the Franschhoek Wine Tram is the predetermined route and therefore lack of flexibility in terms of which wineries you get to visit. This is coupled by the fact you are constantly on a schedule and having to check your time whether that be at the behest of other guests on a small group tour or in the trams case simply the nature of its pick up and drop off policy. Both options are fine ones that ones we have used in the past but due to the recent re-introduction of the Franschhoek Vineyard Hopper they are no longer optimal in my opinion

A private wine tour is a lovely experience which I can recommend highly however its drawback is price as for those on a budget it is considerably more expensive than any other option and although the price quoted may include tastings it will not generally include lunch or of course gratuities. Therefore once you factor in the almost inevitable wine purchases then the private option can add up to an expensive day out and particularly so if you are planning to do more than one day of wine tasting.

In contrast The Franschhoek Vineyard Hopper experience for me provides a ‘best of both worlds’ experience. Although it operates on a pick up/drop off model it is much more fluid and offers guests much more freedom and flexibility to select or include specific wineries that they wish to visit. It does this while managing to price itself very competitively with it coming in much less than a private tour or even small group tour and only slightly more than the cost of experiencing the Wine Tram.

It is probably worth mentioning for wine newbie’s that you may not get the same level of expertise and imparting of viniculture and viticulture knowledge from your driver that you may get from a designated wine tour guide. However this all equates in the lower cost besides IMO you will pick up more than enough knowledge from the various winery staff or even the winemakers themselves at the wineries you visit.

From start to finish this company were pleasures to deal with. From my initial email enquiry to Danielle to the subsequent follow up email assistance of Johan all the way to the enthusiastic and lovely manner of Thabo who was our driver for both days. We were fortunate that on both days we were Thabo’s only guests therefore essentially we have 2 private tour experiences at a fraction of the cost. I doubt as more and more tourists become aware of this service if we’ll ever be so lucky in the future but regardless it was an unexpected treat on this occasion.

Through a little pre planning on my behalf I managed to devise a day 1 itinerary visiting all our favourite red wine producing wineries in the valley with a picnic lunch stop off in-between for lunch and then a day 2 itinerary focusing solely on our favourite MCC which are being produced in the valley and are of exceptionally quality. All at a fraction of the cost of 2 private wine tours which up until now would have been the only viable way of setting this up.

The contrast of both days was great, ably assisted by Thabo. My wife had initially been upset that this year we were missing out on the wonderful MCC & Champagne festival that is held each December in the village and so with Johan and Thabo’s help I was able to provide her very own MCC festival road trip which certainly went down well 

A big thank you to The Franschhoek Vineyard Hopper for providing us with two really memorable days. I couldn’t recommend you highly enough and without question we will be repeat customers of yours for as many years as we are able to keep visiting beautiful Franschhoek