The location for Kathy’s cancer photoshoot was the Idiom vineyards in the Da Capo wine estate in Stellenbosch.  My mom’s cousin is the farm manager of the vineyard, and Kathy loves going there so the shoot was organised there.  My mom’s cousins and aunt waited for us to finish the shoot, and then we all had a picnic… on the edge of the vineyard.

Sounds fantastic right?  Well, it was a brilliant idea, except the weather didn’t exactly play along.  The rain started during the shoot, and by the time we finished it really was miserable! We ended up huddling around a table under a lapa.  What a beautiful place though! It’s high up in the mountains close to Sir Lowry’s Pass, and overlooks the whole valley…. you can see Strand and Gordon’s Bay etc from the deck that’s been built on a rocky outcrop.

Anyhoo, because of the shoddy weather, we were much more interested in having some red wine and cheese well… not really… any excuse for a good wine!

It was so special having a meal with the guy responsible for the vines! Tim told us that the vineyard that we used for Kathy’s shoot was a Sangiovese lot, and that it had just received Gold Veritas status! How cool is that?!

And in fact, we drank a bottle of Sangiovese 2007… oh wow… what a gorgeous wine… especially with strong cheeses! I have to find that now, and buy some!

We also had a 2007 blend of Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot… OMW you should taste that with chocolate!! This one wasn’t that great with cheese

It was such an amazing few hours on top of the hill… and so nice to see family that I haven’t seen in very very many years.  It was the perfect way to end a perfect day… even though I froze my butt off (I was wearing 2 jerseys, and rain jacket and a K-Way jacket and I was still cold!)