Last Updated on October 13, 2025 by Hannah Stephenson
In 2024, the Durbanville wine safari launched in Cape Town. As of right now, it’s mostly used by locals and is CRIMINALLY underrated by tourists.
Visitors to Cape Town usually flock to Franschhoek and Stellenbosch for their wine tastings. And while I love both of those regions dearly, Durbanville is just as worthy of a visit.
The wine safari is an easy, fun, and convenient way of going wine tasting, so I’ve written this guide containing everything you need to know about it. Let’s dive in!
How does the wine safari work?
The wine safari is basically a shared tour of the Durbanville wineries.
Saying that, we ended up being the only people on our safari truck, so we got a private experience!
Anyway, you meet your guides at the Protea Hotel in Durbanville at your chosen start time. This is about 30 minutes outside of the city center and easily accessible by Uber.
Then, you board the safari bus and choose which 3 wineries you would like to visit on your chosen route. If you’re not sure, you can ask your guides for recommendations!
They will drop you off at your first winery of the day and let you know when they’ll be back to pick you up. Usually, you get about 1.5 hours at each winery.
Finally, the safari will drop you back at the Protea Hotel at the end of your tasting tour, where you can call an Uber back to the city.
When does the wine safari operate?
Currently, the wine safari only operates from Friday to Sunday.
In December and January, it was running during the week as well, but outside of peak season this experience is weekends-only.
There are three departure times to choose from: 9:30 am, 10:15 am, or 10:45 am. It lasts for about 5 hours in total, so you should be done by 4 pm at the latest.
If you want to go wine tasting on a weekday, check out the Franschhoek wine tram instead – I’ve got an in-depth guide here!
How to book the Durbanville wine safari
We booked the wine safari through the official website about a week before we went. They offer free cancellation until 24 hours before your departure.
How much does the Durbanville wine safari cost?
Tickets for the wine safari cost R330 per person. This is for transport only, as you’ll pay for wine tastings and food at each estate on the day.
I spent a further R540 on food and drinks throughout the day. This covered three wine tastings and my share of two cheese and charcuterie boards, which we split between three people.
It’s worth noting that it’s definitely a bit cheaper to go wine tasting in Durbanville than it is in Franschhoek and Stellenbosch!
Which route should I choose?
The Durbanville wine safari currently offers two routes: North and South.
Each route covers a different set of wineries, which are as follows:
Northern Line:
- Canto
- Diemersdal
- Groot Phesantekraal
- Meerendal
Southern Line:
- Bloemendal
- D’Aria
- Durbanville Hills
- Klein Roosboom
- Maastricht
- Nitida
Honestly, I don’t think that it matters too much which line you choose, so don’t lose any sleep over it. With that being said, we opted for the Southern Line as it offered more choice.
The best wine farms to visit on the Durbanville wine safari
I absolutely loved all three of the wineries that I visited on the wine safari, so I can honestly recommend all of them. I’ll go into more detail about each one below, just bear in mind that all of these wineries are on the Southern Line.
Klein Roosboom
Our first stop of the day was Klein Roosboom, which I totally fell in love with.
We did their cap classique tasting out in the garden for R100. It was the perfect way to kick off the day!
For those of you who don’t know, cap classique is the same thing as champagne, they just can’t call it that because of the infamous “champagne rule.”
I loved sitting out in the garden but it’s worth noting that Klein Roosboom also has unique wine caves! They used to be fermentation tanks but now function as private tasting rooms – how cool is that?
Each one has its own theme, and you can check out the full list of caves here. These do need to be booked in advance, though, which you can do online.
If you do book a tasting cave, I would recommend snagging the 10 am – 12 pm timeslot. Then, book the 9:30 am wine safari, and let your guides know about the booking. They’ll make sure you get to Klein Roosboom on time!
Maastricht
Next up, we headed onto Maastricht. It’s a gorgeous, old-school winery. Tastings are conducted inside the old barn, but if you’d rather sit outside and enjoy the glorious views then you can always order a bottle to enjoy in the sunshine.
We opted for the wine tasting so we sat inside. We got 5 wines plus a glass of cap classique for R110 – what a bargain! We also ordered a cheese and charcuterie board which was absolutely delicious. It came with this incredible freshly baked brioche, which was just what we needed to soak up all of the wine.
D’Aria
D’Aria is a modern and elegant winery with a spacious garden. We got another cheeseboard here and did The Choir tasting, which meant we got to pick any six wines from a list of eleven in total. Honestly, this was a bit ambitious for our last tasting of the day and I left feeling very drunk.
Would I do the Durbanville wine safari again?
Hell yeah, I would!
It was so much fun and great value for money. All of the wineries we visited were absolutely beautiful, and our guides on the safari were great fun, too. I’ll definitely do this again the next time I’m in Cape Town!
You can book the Durbanville wine safari here!