Negotiating dusty roads to find South Africa’s best wineries is well worth it

Clouds gathering over the vineyards of Iona on the high hills above the Elgin Valley

The car is labouring up a winding gravel road, the tyres spitting stones as the route doglegs among scattered pines and rocky scrubland. The hills viewed through the windscreen could easily be somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. And appropriately enough, the place that we’re gingerly driving towards is called Iona.

But this Iona isn’t in Scotland. In fact, we’re 6,000 miles away, near the southern coast of South Africa, and Iona is the name of a winery in the Elgin Valley, an area of the Western Cape once better known for its orchards than vineyards. They still grow apples here, but these days Elgin is perhaps more widely regarded as home to more than 20 wine producers.