REVIEW: Franschhoek Wine Tram

I heard about the Franschhoek wine tram when I first arrived for my extended stay in Cape Town in November, but sadly it was closed due to covid restrictions at the time.  It wasn’t until June that I finally got to experience this gem of an activity.  Made even better by the fact that my sisters AND an old friend were in town to accompany me on this adventure.

In case you aren’t familiar with the Franschhoek Wine Tram – it’s essentially a hop-on hop-off experience of the picturesque Franschhoek Valley – through beautiful vineyards, breathtaking scenery, warm hospitality, world-class cuisine, fine wines & a 300 year old history.

The Franschhoek wine tram currently offers six hop-on hop-off lines to choose from:  Orange Line, Purple Line, Blue Line, Green Line, Red Line and Yellow Line.  Each visiting eight wine estates in the region and showcasing a separate area of the Franschhoek Valley.  So you really can’t ever get bored with this experience!  There’s always a new line or new winery to try!

Passengers can hop on and off the double-decker tram and open-air tram-bus at their leisure - stopping in at some of South Africa’s oldest and most distinguished wine estates for wine tasting, a cellar tour, lunch, stroll around the grounds, and much more.  

As passengers ride through the gorgeous Franschhoek Valley, tram hosts share the history of the region and a little bit about wine cultivation itself.

We booked our tickets – for the GREY line – in advance.  As I had heard the more popular routes fill up quickly.  Since we were going during low season (winter + covid times), we had no problem getting tickets the night before.  But if you are going during high season, definitely plan a bit more in advance!

We started off the day by taking calling a car via InDriver.  In case you aren’t familiar with InDriver – it’s an app similar to Uber, except that you can name your price and drivers can either accept or negotiate.  You then choose which driver and price you want to ride with.  For short distances, I usually just use Uber out of ease, but for long distances, this can be a much more affordable way to get to your destination. 

Franshhoek is about an hour from Cape Town city center. And what would have cost R700 on Uber, cost R500 on InDriver.  So you can see it’s well worth a download if you plan to be heading to further out areas.

We arrived at the station about 10 minutes before our tour start time – to quickly check in and get our passes.  We were also given a number of “deals” of the day to entice us to those estates.  

Our first chosen winery was Haute Cabriere – a stop that could only be reached via the grey line bus, so we boarded the bus first instead.  Someone later complained to me that they were disappointed that only half the tour was via tram and the other half via bus (this didn’t bother me at all, but I’m just noting it in case that is important to you).  It’s worth noting that the website does outline which stops along the route are reached via bus vs tram.  

One thing I wanted to quickly mention is that there are some tastings and experiences that require advance booking – although most activities don’t require (we made no advance bookings outside of our tram tickets).  

Once on the bus-tram, I grilled the host about his favorite wineries and asked for feedback on the route I had mapped out. Based on his advice, I made a few modifications.

Haute Cabriere is absolutely beautiful estate and a must-visit for anyone who loves gorgeous vistas & unique architecture.  It’s one of my favorite stops for photos.  

In order to reach out next destination, we had to go back to the Franschhoek Wine Tram starting point to board the actual tram.  So there was a bit of waiting time between stop #1 and stop #2.

Next up on our itinerary was the Franschhoek Cellar.  By this point we were getting pretty hungry from lack of breakfast & additional time switching from bus to tram, so we enjoyed our wine tasting (paired with cheese!) and then promptly headed over to their restaurant to enjoy a beautiful cheese plate & assorted biltong and droewors (well not me, as the lone vegetarian in the group).

Then it was back to the wine tram as we rolled along towards Leopard’s Leap.  The tram portion of the journey was incredibly pleasant.  We got super lucky with the weather – since we had been having a lot of dreary overcast (even rainy) days surrounding our winelands day.  But this day was perfect – clear blue skies & not too cold.

The host came around at various points and offered us samples.  And the rest of the patrons on the train were entertaining & friendly (who isn’t after a wine day?!)

After a short ride, we hit Leopard’s Leap - one of the most popular stops on the tram – it’s large, modern, and clearly very commercialized.  But the wines were tasty – I think I took home the rose – as well as photos from a photoshoot my companions and I insisted on having there lol.

 It was back to the bus-tram for the next leg of our journey as we rolled through to Chamonix.  This wine estate in comparison to the previous was much smaller and more intimate feeling.  But very darling with it’s historic architecture & country vibes.  We did a chocolate & wine pairing here which was fabulous.

 Then the wine bus-tram beckoned us to our next and final stop – Dieu Donne.  This wine estate was not on my radar until the beginning of the morning when our host told me we could not miss it.  And I’m so glad he steered us here because it ended up being my favorite of the day.  Absolutely stunning views, quaint and boutique feeling but delicious wines.  We could have stayed there for hours!

 Once back at the station, we ran into a bit of trouble trying to get an Uber home.  It took us about an hour or so to finally find an uber willing to come get us from Franschhoek.  We ended up opening one of our wine purchases and continuing to drink….maybe not the best idea….but our uber driver sure got a kick out of us (lol).

My advice for the future would be to coordinate a ride home beforehand as that will save you some stress trying to figure out what to do at the end of the day.  The Wine Tram actually offers return to Cape Town service – so that might be worth doing.

Outside of the trouble getting home though, all in all it was a fantastic day.  I would recommend the Franschhoek Wine Tram to anyone and will definitely be going back and doing another line someday!  

Just one thing to note about timing / pacing for the day - our pace of the day become a bit rushed towards the end starting at 11am and doing 5 stops.  The trams came at 30 minute intervals and 30 minutes was always a bit rushed but we didn’t have time to do an hour at all the places we wanted to stop.  So my reco would be to focus on 4 stops….this will give you enough time to do a 60-90 minute stop at all and not be so rushed!  Learnings for next time.

Let me know in the comments what your favorite type of wine is!!! 

XO

Lauren