Spa bath in wine.

Tasting with saber String, Erotikbad in red wine: In South Africa's Cape Peninsula are especially creative wine growers to visit their property unforgettable. For 350 years, fine wines grown here - some of the finest goods are now Germans.

 

Jean-Vincent Ridon has a character set: In its 1500 square meters is just great vineyard in the heart of Cape Town, he has the French flag with the Gallic cock, and his slogan "Vive la différence" leafy. Blue-white-red as the blue sky with white clouds above Table Mountain and the red African soil, on which he can grow great wines. "This all started," says the self-confident young Frenchman, "in the middle of Cape Town, not in Stellenbosch and Groot Constantia."

Ridon is globetrotters. He studied political science, was investment banker, a DJ, a gallery owner in Paris and has worked in Belgium, Turkey and the United States lived. "But wine has always been my passion," he says. 1996, Jean-Vincent Ridon to Cape Town, fell into the city with a Mediterranean flair - and sat in a big goal: He wants the tradition of winemaking in South Africa's "mother city" re-awaken.

Exactly 350 years it is since then in the small Dutch supply station, the first crop was introduced. On 2 February 1659 quoted the founder of Cape Town, Jan van Riebeeck in his diary: "Today - God be praised - was the first wine from grapes from the Cape pressed."

From Germany, France and Spain, the Dutch settlers in mid-17th Century in the belly of its merchant ships in the vines Kapkolonie brought, carefully wrapped in linen with earth-filled bags. On the slopes of Table Mountain, at the Signal Hill, but also in the midst of today's city center tried it, wine unit. Even where in Greenpoint today, the new stadium for the 2010 World Cup emporwächst, planted the settlers - but unsuccessfully - Vine. And in Oranjezicht, now a noble residential area below the Table Mountain.

They raised eight years ago Ridon its flag on an old, forgotten Weinfeld. In 2005 he brought under the label of "Signal Hill", the first harvest: 600 bottles of Clos d'Oranje, a Shiraz, the South African wine Pope John Platter in 2006 gave five stars, the highest award. "I have a lot of experimenting," says Ridon to, "because much of the old tradition has been lost."

National Shrine of the wine

Many lives, however, even today - to sound the full name of the ancient vineyards of 'Lost All "to" Vergelegen ". "All the Lost" at the Swartland wine is in its fifth generation of family ownership. Vergelegen, with its five-star wines are from 1700. "Groot Constantia" before the gates of Cape Town has become a sort of national shrine has become: 1685 by Governor Simon van der Stel was founded, the carefully restored property as a "mother" of the wineries in South Africa - and is the center of the 350-year celebrations of South Africa viticulture.

The Germans were beginning: The abgewirtschaftete Weinfarm the Frankish couple Elke entrepreneurs and Friedrich-Wilhelm Dauphin purchased 1999, was already 1690 by Governor van der Stel granted a German settlers were. The Dauphins christened the historic Good after nearly one kilometer long avenue of century-old eucalyptus trees "Allée Bleue. Then they left it by the artist couple Gundel and Emil Sogor a Gesamtkunstwerk durchstylen and won for the basement of their Pinotage Champion Gerda Willers at the first harvest of the Veritas Double Gold, the highest award for South African wines.

Even the Hamburg shipowner Roland Seidel is one of the old pieces of jewelry, the van der Stel was once a German handed over to a new life. He bought wine in 1997 "De Leuven Jagt on Paarl Mountain with magnificent view to Table Mountain. The old name had lost much of its luster. Seidel built under the new name, "Seidel Mountain" became one of the top wineries from South Africa, a Erlebnisgut bronze foundry, glass blowing and an art gallery.

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At worst, the decay of traditional South African wine industry the 250-year-old "Buitenverwachting" taken in Constantia. 1980 should be parceled and as an investment property sold. The Hamburg entrepreneur Richard Mueller acquired the historic property, without having seen it. Originally it was thought of as a real estate investment. But the family fell in love with the piece of earth, the son of Lars Maack it carefully rehabilitated and expanded it to Mustergut from, which includes a Nobel restaurant that has for years on the Cape gourmet temples counts.

The first great boom experienced German winegrower tradition at the Cape after the Second World War. "In the fifties and sixties was the whole of German wine in South Africa dominated," says Hildegard von Arnim. That was also the time when her husband, Achim von Arnim, his heart was discovered in the wine. Actually wanted to shoot the old Prussian officer family brewers are.

But it was different: He learned the wine from scratch, he studied at Geisenheim and built 1982 the wine and Sektgut "Cabrières" on high above Franschhoek. On Saturdays, visitors can see him on a tour of the cellar in his element Experience: Then the Baron köpft the champagne bottles with a saber. From visitors, the 64-year-old karate enthusiast and makers of the black belt to be happy with a kiss reward.