As the road winds down the pass, baboons sit in front of the cars and demand an offering of fruit. Trouble is, you give one an apple and dozens more appear from the hillside, with the result that traffic slows to a halt while the creatures feast themselves on titbits. Not the average start to a wine-lover’s day out.

In the valley below is the former Huguenot village of Franschhoek, often billed as the “wine and food capital of the Cape”, and it is as good a place as any to start a wine-discovery tour.

Although I had nothing pre-planned other than staying at the French chateau-styled private hotel La Residence, with its five bedrooms and courtyard pool, I wanted to discover a wine that might be deemed to be first class.

South African wine is not nearly as applauded or as well known in Britain as its Australian, New Zealand and Chilean counterparts. Older tipplers might remember South African sherry or the bulk wines of the then all- encompassing co-operative KWV as budget options, but would be hard pressed to name a first division wine from the Cape.

These days, however, South Africa’s wines are emerging to compete in world markets on quality rather than price. The winemakers of South Africa have risen to the challenge to produce better quality wine, which, with a strengthening rand, they must do to achieve the industry aim of getting the British shopper to part with more than £5 for a bottle. They certainly are on track, as exports have risen five-fold in the past decade.

Two years ago a visitor to the newly emancipated country would have been drinking near the top of the range for that £5 budget, but these days you can pay twice that in South Africa for the best the continent has to offer.

But the transformation of South African wine has been extraordinary, and no less so than at Rust en Vrede, a short distance from Franshhoek in Stellenbosch. Here Jean Engelbrecht, the well-travelled son of a famous Springbok winger, has taken over his father’s estate and replanted the majority of the vineyard with new red vines.

If there is a more beautifully situated wine farm (as they call them here) anywhere in the world, I have yet to see it. Framed by mountains and nestled between large shade trees, the white Cape Dutch homestead has stood on this spot for centuries.

Wine from a single farm is termed estate wine, and Rust en Vrede’s rich red estate wines excel. Engelbrecht has been quietly transforming the estate into one of SA’s top producers. For the moment, the patron concedes that his wine may never be up there with French first growths, but it was good enough to be placed in the top five-star category by the 2005 edition of the John Platter Guide, the bible of South African wines and a useful source of information for tourists seeking vineyards, restaurants and accommodation.

R&V tells us something about the modern approach to wine-making by a group of producers who have had to reinvent themselves and their wine-making techniques in the past decade to catch up with a world that left them behind in the days of apartheid.

Much of South Africa’s winelands were planted with the chenin blanc grape (known locally as steen), good for a swig on a hot day but hardly the stuff that was going to compete with Chilean chardonnays or New Zealand sauvignon blancs. Better techniques have replaced old methods, and hip red grapes such as shiraz are rapidly replacing less exciting varieties.

Now South Africa produces some brilliantly concentrated sauvignons, such as those from the historic Constantia Uitsig, on the doorstep of Cape Town. Here you can also dine in an idyllic setting, at one of the Cape’s oldest vineyards. Choose from one of the excellent restaurants, but be sure to book weeks before your trip if you are going in our winter — Christmas is high season here.

The wine tourist is spoilt for choice in the Cape but you don’t have to be the kind of wine-drinker who knows his malolactic fermentation from his malbec to enjoy yourself. Back in Franschhoek, the family took in a picnic at the Boschendal winery — sitting with a prepared hamper on kempt lawns at the foot of the grand Simonsberg mountain while sipping a bottle of fizz is a sublime experience.

For opera lovers, La Motte wine estate is worth a call. Owned by Hanneli Rupert, one of the country’s leading mezzo-sopranos, the estate not only produces world-class wines, but puts on concerts every month.

It is said that South Africa has yet to produce an iconic wine in the same class as Opus One by Mondavi and Phillippe de Rothschild in the Napa Valley, or Penfolds Grange in Australia. I predict South Africa’s time will come: the days of cheap SA sherry are long gone.

The winelands of South Africa are clustered in the Western Cape. Africa Travel Centre (0845 450 5705) can arrange tailor-made holidays there from £1,195 per person.

Ship your own wine

If you're on the Cape wine trail, look for wines that you are unlikely to find in your local wine merchant. You’ll probably buy the odd bottle to bring home in your hand luggage.

· The more ambitious will want to ship a few cases home: most farms will arrange international shipping, but a great-value wine may seems less of a bargain once shipping and UK duties are added.

· If you buy through www.cybercellar.co.za, shipping costs R1,488/£120 per case by air or R632/£56 by surface, min order 10 cases. Each bottle, incurs a standard duty of £1.30 plus Vat at 17.5%.

· Recommended: Ruste en Vrede Estate Blend, 2000, R214.5/£19; Hamilton Russell Chardonnay 2004, R150/ £13.30; Fairview Viognier 2003, R80/£7; Le Riche Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2001, R148/£13; Meerlust Rubicon 2000, R165/£14.70 (prices per bottle in a case of 12 at www.cybercellar.co.za).

Times recommends

• Tuesday: the latest airport and flights news
• Wild Girls hit the Klosters slopes
• Red Sea: the complete guide