Mellasat Vineyards White Pinotage — Attraction in Drakenstein Local Municipality

......our first encounter with this establishment was already a foretaste of good things to expect! At the end of September we had emailed them to book our reservation with the intention of visiting on the 15th Oct. 2017 we were blown away that the very same afternoon we had a reply from Tessa confirming our reservation! Wow! Very impressive! As the time came nearer we discovered that we had a more important engagement on the 15th Oct. so we phoned to ask if we can alter our reservation to a week before again we had the opportunity to speak to Tessa who was most obliging to make our visit possible for Lunch time on the 8th Oct. and guess what? Tessa happened to be our host so we met her in person which turned out to be absolute-lii magnificent as Tessa turned out to be an outstanding host, very knowledgeable with every detail of every wine she poured us to taste! We had come to experience a Sunday Lunch with a difference, Wine tasting 3 white's Seraphic, White Pinotage, Chardonnay & 3 red's Rose', Shiraz, Revelation plus a Platter with cured meats, cheeses, olives & breads and oh yes Chocolate brownies! It was delightful-ii delicious and very filling! The only let down was that there coffee machine was out of order as we real-lii needed to have an espresso after all the wines but that wasn't to serious we knew that the Wine-lands Engen was on the way back to Cape Town were we could and did stop to have that coffee! This venue is set in a Picturesque wine yard with beautiful gardens filled with large oak trees and lots of green grass! The reception area is very well decorated in a real winery way, although the tasting room is rather small but very cos-ii with a pleasant fire-place and seen that it was a bit chillii today they had a log-fire going filling the room with a very romantic ambiance! This place comes very high-lii recommended by us and it's worth a visit some or other time from all wine lovers!................its our opinion that this venue will do well if they have a full on restaurant as you are unable to order a more solid meal but we are told that they are working towards this for the future!............Clap! Clap! Clap!....Feb. 2020...And we are back again this time to redeem our WiKi-Deal Voucher for the Vintner's Platter, a glass of wine and an Exquisite Wine Tasting Experience. With the time-slot that we choose we had the whole tasting room to ourselves and that included having and enjoying the full attention of Elzaan and Gaymari who where absolute-lii on point in every way. Very knowledgeable about every wine that they served us. We even had the thrilling experience of visiting "The Cemetery Of Forgotten Wines" which occupies the entire basement under the tasting-room, an amazing encounter. We discovered once again that despite the fact that they don't have a dedicated and full-on restaurant they have week-lii & month-lii events that offers "food & wine pairing", in winter they have a month long "soup & wine pairing", they have a Spanish-Day where everything centers around real Spanish traditions. They even have a Spanish red wine in the Mellasat Range "Tempranillo, a true-lii well flavoured taste-ii wine. We all fell in love with it. On the 7th March 2020 they have "Run The Vine & Tread The Grapes" and on the 21st & 22nd March they have the "Gourmet Burger & Wine Week-End". We believe "The Picnic Days" are incredibly awesome which we will definite-lii attend when next it takes place...The Landscapes around the whole estate are picturesque and beautiful....everything about this Boutique Wine Estate and...

Although the staff were extremely friendly and very helpful, the quality of the food we received in our picnic basket were not nearly up to standard at all.

I purchased a Wikideal picnic, that included a wine tasting for R399 for 2 people.

The wine tasting was okay, but once we sat down to enjoy our picnic, we were surprised to find so little food in our picnic basket!

The picnic basket included a bottle of wine, which was nice in itself, but the food was not well prepared at all.

The pasta salad looked and tasted like it was bought from Spar’s deli the day before, and the 2 x spring rolls and 1 x samosa was old and hard to chew, and difficult to swallow.

The bread was old and the ‘butter’ was actually margarine, even after being told that it is butter. We eat butter everyday and that wasn’t butter at all.

There was some fruit on a skewer, a few strawberries and grapes, but not nearly enough for two adults.

There were only a few slices of ham and salami, but again, not nearly enough to satisfy two adults.

We were really disappointed with the quality of the food and it seemed that whomever prepared it, did so the day before our picnic took place, using food that wasn’t fresh at all.

I therefore, wouldn’t recommend the picnic at all.

I bought another Wikideal for a three-course meal at Bricklane Eatery near the Century City Mall, and I must honestly admit that the food there was absolutely delicious, with generous portions, which included two classes of Durbanville Hills red or white wine.

So one cannot tell me that you get what you pay for, since you’d still expect to receive freshly prepared food and value for your money.

Neither of which we ended up receiving at Mellasat Vinyards, compared to the Gourmet three-course meal we enjoyed at Bricklane Eatery for the same...

After a day at Mellasat, I will definitely double check the wine estate before I go when using wiki deals. Apart from the beautiful view, wine cellar, and good wine, it has been a complete letdown. I feel that it's should have been better. My partner and I had much higher expectations, but the vineyard went far below that. Not only were there only 2 staff members on duty, the manager of the venue was nowhere to be found only when a client asked to complain to the manager did they appear. Honestly, it was a mess due to the high number of clients, but it does not excuse the fact that the service was lacking ,knowledge of the product was lacking and the attitude to the service was sad.

To top it off, the fact that we waited for an hour and thirty minutes just to get a picnic basket, which didn't even have half the items advertised, is bad for the presentation. I had to rearrange the items that were wrapped in tinfoil just to make it look somewhat presentable, sucks. To add to that, when we were moved to the wine cellar after being seated, not once did either the manager nor the staff members checked on us to see how we were doing.

I'm not an expert in this field, but i do know enough to know that Mellasat is losing out on its potential, and the fact that the owners of the vineyard have not stepped in is sad. This is a beautiful place, but it needs overwhelming for the foreseeable future. Or it won't last. I wish to see some sort of improvement, but until that happens, I do not recommend the place as a wine estate to go to.

Please note: the cake we had to bring in and ask for premisson to eat was not included in the...