Estate · The cellar
The cellar.
Old methods.
Honest wine.
How we make wine here, from the morning pick through bottling. The short version: slowly, by hand, with as little intervention as the vintage allows.
What we believe
The wine is already
in the grapes.
Our job in the cellar is mostly not to ruin it. We farm carefully, pick at the right moment, then try to stay out of the way as much as the wine allows.
That means no enzymes, no commercial yeast, no fining agents, minimal sulphur, no oak chips, no chasing whatever style is fashionable that year. The wines taste of where they come from because that is the point.
Some years a wine asks for something more. We listen. But the default is less, not more.
From vine to bottle
Four moments
that matter most.
Pick at first light
Hand-picked between 05:30 and 09:00 in 14 kg lugs. Sorting in the vineyard, not the cellar. Most years we pick over six to ten mornings per block.
Whole-bunch press
Whites and the MCC base are whole-bunch pressed at low pressure. We use a small bag press, take only the free run and the first press, then discard the rest.
Wild ferment
No yeast inoculation. The wild yeast on the grape skins does the work. Slower, less predictable, more honest. Reds ferment in small open-top tanks with manual punch-downs twice a day.
Old oak, no rush
Whites in 500-litre French oak fûts, mostly old. Reds in 300- and 500-litre French oak, 0–25% new across the range. The Oupa Chenin sees zero new wood. We want the place, not the carpenter.
The barrel cellar
Old oak,
not new oak.
New oak makes wine taste of itself. Old oak just gives the wine a little air and lets it find its own voice. About a third of our barrels are 500-litre, bigger than the standard 225-litre barrique, which means less surface contact and a slower, gentler influence.
- 500L French oak fûts (whites, Syrah)
- 300L French oak hogsheads (Pinotage)
- Average barrel age: 4–6 years
- 0% new oak on Oupa Chenin, 25% maximum elsewhere
By the numbers
A small farm, on purpose.
Want to see it?
Cellar tours run twice a morning, Tuesday to Saturday. Two hours, R350 a head, including a tank-sample tasting and a glass of MCC on the stoep.
Book a cellar tour