Lanzerac Wine Estate

Lanzerac Wine Estate is a historic Cape Dutch hotel in Stellenbosch's Jonkershoek Valley, established in 1692 as the third-oldest farm in the area — just 13 years after the town itself was founded. Its Manor House, built around 1830, and the surrounding Werf are now a Provincial Heritage Site, and the estate carries a wine-history claim few others can: it was the first winery in the world to put the word "Pinotage" on a label, with its 1959 vintage, after Stellenbosch University viticulture professor Abraham Izak Perold created the grape in 1925 by crossing Pinot Noir and Cinsaut.

The estate today combines individually styled rooms and suites — including the separate Rick's Cottage with its own gazebo and pool, and Courtyard Suites with access to a private lap pool — with a spa built around eight vineyard-view treatment rooms, an indoor heated pool, sauna and NeoQi relaxation cocoons. Guests get daily complimentary wine tasting and cellar tours as part of their stay, while paying tasting options range from a R120 five-wine Jonkershoek flight to a R280 Heritage Tasting of three flagship wines. Dining spans five venues, from the 1960s-era Taphuis Bar to Manor Kitchen's seven-course wine-paired dinners under Executive Chef Stephen Fraser, and — unusually for a wine estate — The Library, a dedicated fine water tasting room led by certified water sommelier Nico Pieterse.

Lanzerac reopened on 1 July 2018 after a fire in May 2017, under ownership that took over the estate in 2012, keeping its 330-year run as one of the Cape's oldest continuously worked wine farms intact.