Groot Drakenstein runs along the R45 between Paarl and Franschhoek, at the foot of the Groot Drakenstein mountains. Boschendal, one of the Cape's oldest wine-and-fruit estates, traces its Cape Dutch werf architecture back to the late 1600s, and the district is also where the former Victor Verster prison — now Drakenstein Correctional Centre — stands: the gate Nelson Mandela walked out of a free man on 11 February 1990. Farm homesteads here range from those original thick-walled werf houses with small, deep-set windows to newer wine-estate homes built to look straight down the vine rows through walls of glass.
On the werf-style homesteads, the small deep-set sash and shutter windows usually take a timber venetian or a cellular blind — both suit the frame depth and the room's older proportions without fighting the architecture. On the newer glass-fronted estate homes right under the mountain, we lean on external venetian blinds to stop the heat before it crosses the glass, since these homes sit closest to the range and catch the mountain-funnelled gusts hardest — which also means any awning or screen gets a wind sensor as standard, not an option.
Entertaining stoeps between the vine rows are a natural fit for a folding-arm awning, and an enclosed deck does well with a zip screen through the dustier harvest weeks.
A free in-home measure covers both the older werf rooms and any newer wing on the same property — we specify window by window, not one blanket answer for the whole farm.
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