What if you could experience the Cape Winelands without seeing them?
Nederburg, Paarl District / Leo za1 / Wikimedia Commons
That is the idea behind Nederburg Uncharted, an immersive wine experience in Paarl. It asks guests to put aside the usual rituals of wine tasting and experience a landscape through sound, scent, touch and taste.
A different kind of wine tasting
Part of Nederburg’s Dinner of Discovery series, Uncharted takes guests through three South African landscapes. Each landscape comes with a Nederburg wine.
Guests put on headphones and blindfolds before the journey begins. Soundscapes create a sense of place, while scents and tactile objects add another layer to the experience. Only once the sensory journey ends does the wine reveal its connection to the landscape.
The idea may sound unusual, but there is science behind it. Wine involves far more than taste and smell. Research shows that sound, lighting and other sensory cues can influence how we perceive flavour and how much we enjoy a wine.
Uncharted turns that science into something you can experience. One of the landscapes draws inspiration from the West Coast. Guests encounter the setting through sound, scent and touch. A smooth stone and other sensory elements help build a picture of the coast before the wine comes into focus.
Then the blindfolds come off.
From landscape to glass
There is something fitting about the experience taking place at Nederburg. The Paarl estate dates back to 1791, while its Cape Dutch manor house dates to 1800. Today, Nederburg remains one of South Africa’s established wine estates. Uncharted offers a more unexpected way to explore its connection with wine and place.
The sensory journey eventually leads to the table. A three-course dinner draws on the landscapes explored during the tasting, bringing the wine and food together.
For travellers who have already done the classic Winelands itinerary, this offers something different. There are no vineyard views to admire at first. Instead, you listen. You smell. You touch. You taste.
And perhaps that is what makes Uncharted memorable. The Cape Winelands usually arrive through the eyes. At Nederburg, the invitation is to experience them with everything else.
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