Michael Jordaan

The things I love most about Stellenbosch are the mountains and the oaks.

When out-of-towners come to town, I take them mountain-biking in Jonkershoek, walking along the Eersteriver, dining at the many great restaurants, wine-tasting on the Stellenbosch wine route, and invite them for sundowners on the Bartinney stoep.

The best restaurant I’ve eaten at recently is Rust en Vrede. The five-course set menu at is a sine qua non for any foodie.

My other favourite restaurants are Tokara and Delaire Graff; we’re lucky they are within crawling distance from our vineyard. We always listen to the chef’s specials, and my wife falls for anything with prawns or duck in it. In town we love Genki for sushi, The Big Easy for venison, Wijnhuis for the wide menu and Oude Bakkerij (now known as Schoon De Companje) for breakfast.

An annual Cape Town event I always attend is the Cape Wine Auction, for which I am a trustee. The inaugural event raised R7 million for education in the winelands and it is set to become an international must-attend event now.

On Twitter I try and strike a balance between local and international, humour and serious opinion-makers. I also follow and unfollow regularly.

The Oscar Pistorius trial does not get any airtime in my home. I try and avoid it altogether, as I find the whole thing so sad. A very real issue in SA is violence against women. Hopefully at the end of the trial something good will come of it if we realise that any aggression against women is unacceptable.

My favourite TV series is Game of Thrones. Life can get so serious that it is nice to sometimes escape into a fantasyland where every next step is unexpected.

My favourite weekend getaway is a little fisherman’s cottage at Churchhaven on the West Coast. The cottage is off the grid, so the only water is rainwater and the only power is solar. It reminds me of how little we need to be happy.

On my bucket list to do in the Cape is diving with the sharks, skydiving off Table Mountain, a night at Ellerman House.

The best coffee in Stellenbosch is at Melissa’s.

The best walks in Stellenbosch are to be found in the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve, or climbing the Drakenstein mountains.

Apart from Bartinney’s, a good red wine for a special occasion is De Toren Fusion V.

The best book I’ve read in a while is The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. I attended a weeklong executive course at Singularity University in Silicon Valley. It rewired my brain about the potential that the future holds. It is much better than we commonly think.

My favourite film is Avatar. Apart from the excellent computer and animation graphics and the riveting action scenes, the moral of the story strongly resonated with me.

I’m currently busy with a venture-capital start-up called Angelhub. After many years in a large corporate, the pendulum has swung and I love being involved with small start-ups that have the temerity to challenge giants and their business models.

Apple without Steve Jobs would have been a lemon.

On Sundays it is so much tougher to get out of bed.

Money does not buy happiness.

Straight after this, I’m having another coffee

One day we’ll realise that we should have taken more calculated risks when we were younger.

Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaeljordaan