Two things make Robertson worth a visit: nature and wine. They seem to meet and mingle here perfectly. As you sip a crisp Chardonnay in one of the award-winning country cellar doors, look up and you'll be greeted by the silhouettes of hazy ridges, poking high with the Riviersonderend Mountain to the south, rising strong with the rocky Montagu Mountain to the north.

In the town itself, there are Robertson tour guides who can help you taste your way through the 50 or more vineyards that make their home in the designated Robertson Wine Valley. It's up there with the most famous growing areas of the Western Cape, encompassed by a wiggling roadway that weaves past bucolic farms and out to handsome villages like Ashton and McGregor.

Adventurers can get stuck into the corrals for horse riding – Robertson is a hub for rearing fine horses and comes webbed with loads of marked bridle trails. Not one for the saddle? Tread the Arangieskop Trail instead, to conquer 1,600-meter-high lookouts and clamber over the steep-sided gorges of the Dassieshoek Nature Reserve.