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April 30, 2008 - Buy Wine

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Worcester Travel Guide in the Winelands - South Africa


The town of Worcester in South Africa was founded in 1822. The town today is mainly the service centre for the surrounding wine and fruit growing areas in the Breede River Valley. Worcester lies at the N1 freeway connecting Cape Town and Johannesburg and is an ideal place for a stopover, since it has some interesting tourist attractions to offer.

At the Kleinplasie open-air museum one can gain an insight into the living conditions of the first settlers. A farm from the 18th century, a hut of the Trekboers and a Khoikhoi camp have been rebuilt and furnished true to detail. Actors in historical dresses reinvoke the rural life of the old days. Visitors can watch how they manufactured soap, rolled tobacco, forged horseshoes, milled wheat, spun wool and much more.

To the wine lover, Worcester offers a big Wine Tasting Centre, where one can savor the excellent Breede River wines. Definitely worth a visit is the KWV Brandy Cellar, where one can gain an insight into art of brandy distillation.

Another attraction is the Karoo National Botanical Garden, about one kilometer north of Worcester. In this 144 hectare semi-desert nature reserve one can find a whole spectrum of Karoo plants.

Glider-flying enthusiasts find the only glider flying airfield in the Cape in Worcester. The Cape Gliding Club owns a whole range of one or two-seater glider planes, a towing aircraft and a tarred runway. Flying activities are usually limited to the weekends only. Visitors are welcome and can, under the supervision of a teacher, try flying themselves. Thermal winds and weather conditions in the Breede River Valley are excellent most of the year.

Worcester lies on the main route to and from Cape Town, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. With its wide range of services and commercial facilities, it has become the business and shopping centre for the entire valley and surrounding towns.

Things to See and Do:

Kleinplasie:

The Complex (next to the Robertson Road) comprises the agricultural showground's, an Open Air Living Museum, restaurant and wine cellar, as well as the Reptile World.

Kleinplasie Open Air Living Museum:

The unique open air museum depicts the lifestyle of the early pioneer farmers. Throughout the year a variety of activities are presented.

Karoo National Botanical Garden:

This jewel of a garden with 144ha of natural semi-desert vegetation and 10ha of landscaped gardens, features the unique plants of the drier parts of the country. Its greenhouse boast world famous collections of stone plants.

Brandy Route:

During the 325th brandy producing year in South Africa in 1997, the world's first Brandy Route was introduced, causing a stir amongst the world media. Public awareness was roused and brandy-lovers set about finding out more about the production and finer side of this noble fruit of the vine, by visiting the cellars along the Brandy Route.

The KWV Cellar, the largest of its kind in the world, is one of eight cellars on the Brandy Route. It's uniqueness lies in the 120 Woudberg potstills, huge maturation cellar and demonstrations of the ancient craft of barrel-making by the coopers.

The Olof Bergh Solera Cellar, at Goudine, is the other cellar in the Worcester region. Small but prolific, it accommodates 22 Woudberg copper potstills, similiar to those used in Cognac, France, for the distillation of high quality colombar wines. It is the only cellar in South Africa to practice the famous Spanish Solera method of maturation and blending.

Institute for the Blind:

Visitors are invited to come and see how the visually impaired are trained and how they work.

Institute for the Deaf:

Visitors are invited to come and see how the hearing impaired are trained and how they work.

Nuwe Hoop Centre for the Hearing Impaired:

A centre where children between the ages of three and twenty one years receive formal and technical training. Visitors are welcome.

Architectural Walking Routes:

Worcester was laid out according to a definite plan with parallel streets. This enables the visitor to take an easy walk through town and visit some prime examples of early architecture. Brochures are available at the Tourism Bureau.

Gift and Antique Shops:

Several interesting shops are dotted around town.

Gerald Crawford was born in South Africa, studied electronics, telecommunication, eco-travel and african travel concepts. He taught responsible tourism in South Africa. If you have any questions or comments please e-mail me on. E-mail Address: southafricantravelarticles@12234455.co.za Website Address: www.12234455.co.za



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4:46 PM

Wednesday April 30, 2008 - Wine Education

A Featured Wine Education Article

Surprising Facts about Dessert Wine


Napa" means a land of plenty. This part of world is full of rivers, migrating birds especially waterfowls and the valley of greeneries with plenty of wildcats, elk, black bear and grizzlies. But the most precious asset of this valley is the winegrapes.The early visitors like George Calvert found the valley's wine grape productivity skill. He took the initiative to harvest wine grapes in this valley in 1836.The other main pioneers of this project were John patchett the first person to plant vineyard commercially along with Hamilton Walker Crabb,who researched with over 400 species of grape.





If you want to spoil your sweet tooth right after every meal, you can opt to enjoy the whole meal and end it with a delectable dessert wine.





Dessert wines refer to wines that are generally served after meals together with the desert. However, this particular kind of wine can also be gulped on its own ? that is even without those sugary desserts. Examples of popular dessert wines are ?trockenbeerenauslese,? ?Sauternes,? beerenauslese,? and ?Tokaji Asz?.?





To learn more about dessert wines, here is a list of some facts about these delightful and extremely sweet wines:





1. Dessert wines are mainly produced from special fruits that were left to ripen on the vine. The main purpose of this is to make the flavor stronger. The kinds of fruits used in making dessert wines are the ones that define the overall taste or flavor of the wine.





2. In the United States, dessert wines generally contains 14% alcohol, though, it may contain than 14%.





During the ancient times, dessert wines were primarily used as ?table wines.? For this reason, ancient dessert wines only contain 12.5% alcohol or less. This means that the alcohol content is so mild that you can almost drink it as a substitute for water or any beverages during meal.





3. The more ripened the fruit is, the more alcohol is generated when produced into dessert wine. Most of these wines are classified as ?dry? and ?unfortified? or those that were not combined with spirits like brandy. The inclusion of spirits during the fermentation of the wine is the process of fortifying the wine.





Adding spirits at the early stage of fermentation results to a sweeter wine. However, its alcohol content is raised to as much as 15% to 20% upon the swift concoction of alcohol.





However, there are unfortified wines that can still reach up to 15% alcohol content. These kinds of wines, like the ?Zinfandels,? are charged with higher tax rates.





4. Not all dessert wines are alcoholic beverages. Many dessert wines contain lower amount of alcohol content. Most of these non-alcoholics or with low alcohol content wines are those from Germany. These kinds of dessert wines contain the slightest amount of alcohol or only goes to as much as 8%.





Given all these facts, dessert wines aren't just wines suited for desserts, as its name suggests. With their remarkable features, the possibilities of enjoying dessert wines are definitely endless.







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