Lanzerac Wine Estate — Hotel in Stellenbosch Local Municipality

My family and I stayed at Lanzerac for 5 nights at the end of our stay in Africa. We booked two rooms, 1 double and 1 twin. The first night we dined at their Taphuis restaurant. My wife and I I ordered a sharing platter, some of the chicken on this was raw. I never realised, I thought that the a shiny translucent item in a kebab was a piece of onion, unfortunately it wasn’t. The next day I awoke at 3am with the worst food poisoning I have ever had. A couple of days later I booked the seven course tasting menu. At breakfast I again told the staff that I was intolerant to milk and eggs. This was noted down with my name and room number. On the evening we sat down to dinner, the waiter asked about intolerance and allergies, I told him mine and he went to the kitchen. 10 minutes later the chef appeared, he apologised and said he hadn’t been told. the kitchen tried to retrofit a dairy and egg free meal for me but it didn’t work. After 3 hours 30 minutes we still hadn’t had all our food so I retired to my room and had a banana. Our room was OK, the air conditioning was ridiculously noisy so couldn’t be left on at night. Both rooms had ants in them. As it was winter in SA the wood fires in the main building were always burning, this made the whole place very smokey, they were burning damp wood and this made the smell very strong. As our room was close to the main building you could also smell smoke in our room. Most of the staff were very good, I found some a little rude. One evening I asked if a table was available in the Craven lounge, I was told I needed a reservation, I explained I was staying at the hotel, the waitresses looked me up and down and said “what, YOU are staying here?” When we checked out nothing had been removed from the bill, not even the raw chicken. When I got back home I contacted my Doctor and I was prescribed a broad spectrum antibiotic to hopefully clear up suspected E. Coli. I’ve never needed to take any antibiotics for 25+ years. I would never return to Lanzerac it was a complete,...

This wine farm was amazing from the moment we stepped foot on the premises (the grounds are absolutely exquisite). We booked a dinner reservation there and ended up getting a wine tasting too. Our waiter (Bobby) had asked the manager whether a tasting would be possible. The manager (Ms. Fundiswa) came over to the table saying that she heard we were interested in a tasting but that we would not be able to do this as it was too late and possibly already locked up. 10 minutes later she came back saying that she was able to put some wines aside from from the wine tasting of the day. Not only did her hospitality blow us away, but her knowledge of the farm, their heritage, and wine in general was amazing! We later heard she was a Sommelier! So humble but extremely passionate and knowledgeable! I’m not a white wine fan but their white wines were great. I really enjoyed the Merlot…my wife preferred the Pinotage (which we learnt A LOT about) as well as their CabSav…in short their wines were really really amazing we felt embarrassed that we did not know more about their wines or their history. The supper was also very good! We ate at the Manner restaurant - fine dining and everything you would expect! They also have a Tappas restaurant which has more everyday type meals. N.B!!! They ALSO have a cigar lounge with almost any whiskey you can think of! We bought some cigars and enjoyed ending off our evening in the cigar lounge! Thank you to the Lanzarac team and a special thank you to Fundiswa (from Durban I might add) for giving us an unforgettable evening - no pretenses, just...

As a Capetonian, I love visiting venues across our lovely city, and one cannot miss the opportunity to visit Lanzerac. The sheer size and beauty is breathtaking, and having seen it on a cold Sunday morning, was such a sight to behold. I must have looked like a tourist seeing it for the first time having taken so many pictures, but I assure you that not even these photos can truly do it justice. Its well outside of my price range in nearly every aspect, so I cannot comment on the rooms, the banquet areas, conference rooms and so on, but it is mesmerising being surrounded by Mountains.

I do have one small critique which was the experience at the Deli on Sunday (4 June), when my girlfriend and I went for a Sunday drive to Lanzerac and opted to test the Deli out. Our coffee arrived very quickly as we sat down, and being one of the first people inside, the waiteress took our drinks order and then soon enough returned with it, however after that, she went away to not come back. We wanted to order food, but it took to long for service to arrive, and when we thought we would just rather pay and leave, I asked another waiter to please arrange the bill. That took nearly 20 minutes before my girlfriend and I got up and went to the front to ask for it. Everyone thought someone else was going to sort it out, but no one actually did. I know it was very early, just would have been nice to have faster service considering it was still empty.

Other than that, what a beautiful place. I would...