One Big Grape

For a short time after finishing the research for this story, which ran in Newsday's travel section today, Katie and I were both off wine. The boycott didn't last long--maybe a week--but it was much needed. By the time I was done sniffing and sipping my last wine sample, I felt like that nasty girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who blows up into a big purple bulb and gets rolled off to detox by the Oompa Loompas.

Ugh.

Still, until those last few sips, it was a fun story to report. The people working in the cellars of the smaller South African wineries were universally friendly. And the wine was fantastic, of course.

Most of the pictures I sent along to Newsday to accompany the story didn't make the cut, and the newspaper ended up using mostly pictures from the South African Tourist Board. I'm clearly not a photographer. Still, if you want to see the pictures I sent in to them, check out the photo set that we put up on Flickr here.