A stainless steel spittoon stands on the stoep, and nobody uses it. That is exactly what it is for: if you visit three estates in a day and drive yourself, you taste, spit and buy the bottle for the evening. South Africa's limit is 0.05 grams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, and the roads between estates are checked.
A tasting works much the same everywhere. You get a list of four to six wines, pay a fee per person and sit for half an hour to an hour. According to a Cape Town wine site, fees run at roughly R100 to R250 per person per estate, as of June 2026, with big names charging more. Where an estate publishes its own figures, they appear with a date on its page. Some estates, Saronsberg in Tulbagh for one, waive the fee if you buy enough wine.
Whether you need to book varies. For estate restaurants, always; for tastings at well-known houses in the high season from November to April, often; in Robertson, Tulbagh or the Breede Valley, rarely. The selection below is not a ranking. It lists the estates visitors actually go to, because there is something to see, eat or learn there.
