back in cape town

after an early start we headed to franshoek, another wine town for a cellar tour of cabriere-famous for its sparkling wines and sabering of the bottles. sabering is essentially slicing off the cork & top portion of the glass with the back side of a saber. apparently i to can try this at home, using many assorted devices ( a coffee spoon, a butcher knife, another glass....really?! i'm considering an attempt at my birthday....) it was very informative, but certainly the best part was the sabering. krista held the bottle while he loped the top off ans it shot off like a rocket. we were then treated to our first of 5 glasses. at the other places we could sip and spit or pour out what we didn't want. here our only option was to finish the glass before you could refill with the next one. all this before noon. and before lunch. krista abstained, as designated/only driver on our trip...i encouraged at least one tiny sip a few times. certainly after the third i was beyond giggly. the bubbles really do go straight to my head. and its sooo delightful. i do have to admit the tour improved greatly by that point. only the finer things in life for me my friends. we bought two bottles of the blancs de blancs (@ 80 rand each, a little over ten dollars) which i am looking forward to uncorking tonight at our fancy pants hotel. quite the step up from last night.
a small tragedy i have to report- we hoped to make it back in time to visit the vintage stores today but both were very much closed. i am retuning with out having set foot in one. i will try not to dwell on this matter. it was a great loss, but on the positive it is helpful for the budget. but budgets be damned! also no spelling check here so bear with me.