Stellenbosch is never far from a local’s plans – knowing the idyllic weekend market to stop in at, the chicest hotel with the chillest vibes, and which wine estate has the tasting worth trekking for, then returning to.

Some of the area’s respected, longstanding classics remain steadfast in their delivery – occasionally unimaginative, but generally still satisfying – while newer, or reimagined picks, are raising the bar creatively across food and wine.

And increasingly, the experience around the bottle matters almost as much as what is in it.

We maintain a commitment to the next good flavour, certainly, but there is also a growing interest in:

• where that flavour comes from,
• how it is produced,
• what happens to the land afterwards,
• and whether the businesses cultivating it can remain culturally & economically relevant for the people around them.

That makes sustainability more and more of an increasingly important part of the modern Winelands itinerary – not just for hospitality.

At Simonsig Family Vineyards, that thinking isn’t entirely new. The third-generation Malan family-owned estate has implemented social, environmental, and economic sustainability measures ranging from Integrated Production of Wine standards and natural pest-control methods to composting, solar energy, water catchment, and recycling. Its solar installation – in operation since 2019 – currently supplies approximately 30% of the farm’s electricity needs. The estate also participates in the Bottelary Hills Conservancy, while its social sustainability programme includes adherence to the WIETA code of conduct, and housing & support provisions for farm workers and their families.

It is the sort of thing that can make a Winelands visit feel a little more meaningful without requiring you to spend the afternoon being lectured about sustainability.

Visiting biodynamic vineyards, booking a cellar tour, or wandering through the area’s tasting rooms can all make for worthwhile additions to an itinerary. But if languishing amid undulating vineyards, crisp wine at the ready, and having food served that doesn’t require a dress code is more your speed, there is another option.

About an hour’s drive from Cape Town, in the Stellenbosch Winelands, you’ll find a lower-key culinary reason to stay put a little longer.

Welcome to Vonkel at Simonsig

There is something pleasingly full circle about Vonkel at Simonsig arriving in the estate’s 55th year of producing Kaapse Vonkel.

Simonsig isn’t simply another Stellenbosch wine farm I revisit, with a sparkling-wine story embossed onto the tasting room leaflet. In 1971, founder Frans Malan produced what Simonsig identifies as South Africa’s first bottle-fermented sparkling wine, Kaapse Vonkel – helping establish the category now known as Cap Classique, or MCC. Malan also co-founded the Stellenbosch Wine Route that same year.

Today, Michael Malan – Frans’s grandson – took over as cellarmaster in 2022. Now, alongside the Tasting Room, that history has finessed another place to make an impression.

Vonkel at Simonsig is the estate’s new restaurant, and its approach is straightforward: brunch and lunch, seasonal ingredients, good provenance, handmade pasta (an actual rarity, I’m telling you), sharing plates, and 36-hour sourdough Neapolitan-style pizzas from a wood-fired oven – with Simonsig’s wines on offer throughout.

It is operated by restaurateur and sommelier Marc Botes of The Tafel Group, whose career includes time as Head Sommelier for Gordon Ramsay Restaurants in London. His visible enthusiasm for sparkling wine is therefore hardly accidental; his experience spanning European wine culture, where one can spend an alarming amount of one’s trips travelling to Champagne simply to drink more Champagne.

Vonkel’s menu instead brings that experience back down to earth.

No brutalist architecture here. No theatre for theatre’s sake. The restaurant sits comfortably within the existing rhythm of the estate, with warmth and a sense of continuity rather than an attempt to turn a historic wine farm into something it isn’t.

And that is probably the point.

You’re still at Simonsig…you’re just being given another reason to stay.

THE WINES

At heart, wine production is an agricultural pursuit.

That can occasionally become easy to forget when you’re sitting somewhere pretty, admiring the vines & waiting for somebody to pour your next glass. But at Simonsig, the relationship between the land, the family, the people working it, and the resulting wine is unusually easy to trace.

• The Malans have been farming here since the early 1950s,
• while the Simonsig label itself dates to 1968. Frans Malan’s pioneering Kaapse Vonkel followed in 1971,
• and the family has continued to develop its portfolio across Cap Classique, Pinotage, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and other varieties.

Two Simonsig wines have already earned places on my New Classics list, while two others, below, are worth knowing if you’re sitting down at Vonkel for the first time.

The first is Kaapse Vonkel Satin Nectar: the sweeter companion to the classic Kaapse Vonkel Brut, and the one I tend to favour more for being a demi-sec Cap Classique, bottle-fermented, and aged on the lees before disgorgement. The current 2023 vintage is made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Blanc – with notes of yellow fruit, apple sherbet, and subtle florals.

Then there is Kaapse Vonkel Satin Nectar Rosé, also a demi-sec Cap Classique, with Pinotage, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. Its salmon colour, strawberry & cranberry character, fine mousse, and crisp finish make it a particularly easy candidate for the one more glass, please category.

The Satin Nectar packaging itself was introduced in 2021 to mark 50 years of Kaapse Vonkel, with bright colours and indigenous floral motifs – an appropriately playful counterpoint to the more formal language usually surrounding traditional-method sparkling wine.

There is history here, for sure, but it doesn’t require you to behave reverently around it.

The wine can simply be good. The estate can simply be beautiful. And lunch can simply be lunch.

THE FOOD

This isn’t where you come for extravagant food designed to make use of a corporate card’s sheer generosity.

Here is where satiating dishes, good local ingredients, and a deft hand produce an experience that matches the substance in the wine cellar.

I’ve nibbled, gorged and shared several dishes, including the Bruschetta Selection and the Neapolitan Pizza selection, and found not one of them wanting.

The menu has the sort of Mediterranean influence that makes immediate sense in the context of Cape weather and wine-drinking culture: produce-forward, convivial, and shaped to sit comfortably beside wine rather than compete with it. The pizza dough is fermented for 36 hours before being hand-stretched and cooked in the wood-fired oven, while the kitchen uses ingredients including locally produced burrata and mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, and Italian flour. It makes my tummy happy!

There are bagels on the menu. I am particular about bagels.

I undertook a diligent Cape Town bagel hunt during the 2020 pandemic period and remain loyal to an impressive little store in the District Six area (New York Bagels, anyone?). Standards have consequently been set.

The house salmon bagel passes muster – bite and lasting consistency enough to be recognisable & comforting without boring you.

The Vonkel brunch menu also understands that sparkling wine doesn’t need to wait until lunch to be popped. Blinis with smoked salmon, crème fraîche, and seaweed caviar (R80) make obvious sense alongside a glass of Cap Classique, while the Royale Roll (R225) takes things somewhere rather more decadent: tempting butter-poached crayfish, creamy scrambled egg, and chives in a brioche bun, finished with a Cap Classique beurre blanc.

That latter dish feels particularly appropriate here. At a restaurant attached to one of South Africa’s pioneering Cap Classique producers, putting the wine into the food rather than merely beside it is a small but rather satisfying detail.

There are also more elaborate options for those who arrive hungry:

The Smoked Salmon & Caviar Croque Monsieur – brioche laden with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and seaweed caviar – is one I have yet to properly investigate, but at R155, it is firmly on the list for my next visit.

And then there is pizza.

Because sometimes the best wine-estate lunch is not a complicated tasting menu. Sometimes it is a properly made pizza, a glass of something cold and sparkling, a view, and absolutely nowhere else you need to be.

The menu’s prices are similarly pleasing.

For a wine-estate restaurant, the overall proposition lands much closer to a very decent everyday Cape Town eatery than to the sort of Winelands experience where one needs to mentally prepare for the bill. Brunch starts at R75 for two slices of house banana bread with espresso butter, while even the more substantial Vonkel Breakfast is R165.

Vonkel also keeps the estate’s own wines unusually accessible: the restaurant currently lists the full Simonsig range, with older vintages available from the cellar.

That matters to me, at least, because wine tourism doesn’t always need to be an exercise in conspicuous consumption.

THE VERDICT?

Vonkel is kind to your palate, wallet and travel schedule – not too much in all the ways that count.

If opulence is what you’re seeking, head elsewhere. There are plenty of establishments in the Winelands willing to provide formal airs, grand architecture…and a price tag to match!

Come as you are. Order what you actually want to eat, and drink the wine that tempts you – the sommilier won’t judge!

There are few better reasons to linger here than everything from the saturation of the sun across the vineyard foliage to the menus and spaced-out seating.

For me, Vonkel at Simonsig is more about restoring something that can occasionally disappear beneath the polish of luxury travel: the pleasure of simply having a very good time somewhere beautiful.

Good vibes.

Good vines.

Good food.

By my recommendation: Vonkel at Simonsig

Simonsig Family Vineyards, Kromme Rhee Road, Koelenhof, Stellenbosch.

The restaurant is currently open daily from 09:00–17:00, with brunch served from 09:00–12:00 and lunch from 12:00–17:00.

Restaurant and tasting-room bookings are separate.