News

With summer ending abruptly, and with the harvest complete, we have a chance to reflect on the first four months of the year. Here are the reflections of our winemaker, Danielle le Roux on the vintage of 2023.

“It was a very dry season – winter and spring had well below average rainfall, with 100mm less than the previous year. Cold units were made up for in late winter and early spring with a cold snap. Warmer spring temperatures led to slightly earlier budding, which was very even, followed by good flowering, with moderate and consistent weather.

December brought a lot of rain, lowering temperatures and mitigating further irrigation during the growing period. The rainfall gave the vines a boost, and the vineyard team worked hard to manage the canopy with extra suckering, tipping, topping, and side shoot removal.

The 2023 harvest on Diemersdal Estate will go down as one of two vintages: Before rain, and after the rains.

Torrential rain fell over the Cape winelands in the first and third weeks of March, which resulted in a challenging, yet interesting harvesting.

For Sauvignon Blanc, our primary cultivar, all the grapes were picked before the March rains. It was also one of the cooler and more temperate Sauvignon Blanc seasons in the Durbanville Wine Valley’s recent history. At Diemersdal we had a magnificent growing season due to the cool, mild conditions during spring and early summer of 2022. And then came some some brilliant rain in December to freshen the vines and build-up water reserves.

The Haute Cabrière Education Centre, established in 2010, has now been given a fresh purpose as the new home of the esteemed Franschhoek Hospitality Academy.

Not only is Haute Cabrière passionate about wine, but also the people who enjoy it, who craft it, who serve it and who love to learn about it. As a family-led Franschhoek Estate which is home to a beautiful restaurant, event venue, tasting room and bakery - hospitality is one of their core missions, alongside the creation of quality wines for people to enjoy together.

The Haute Cabrière Education Centre, formerly a crèche with a strong after-school programme, will now be home to fellow hospitality and wine enthusiasts studying with Franschhoek Hospitality Academy! This marks an exciting new step in Haute Cabrière’s commitment to education, the Franschhoek community and the development of hospitality in the region.

I don't know if they planned it like that, but when I walked into Ken Forrester's tasting room the day before Easter, I walked right into him distributing Easter eggs to the team. Winemaker, Shawn Matthyse, was busy helping out in the tasting room.

You can't fake hard work, and listening again through our almost four-hour discussion, these two are incapable of faking it. The proof's in the wine.

News recently broke of Ken selling the Ken Forrester brand and cellar to the French company Advini.Confused by the parameters of the deal, I asked him where he plans to live in the future. With a steely glint in his eye, he looked up at me and said: “This is home, we live here - I’ve no plans to move - I’ve farmed this patch of land below the Helderberg and learned from the land for 30 years, we’ve replanted more than two thirds and I’m currently still replanting, it starts with the soil"

Paul Clüver Family Wines experienced challenging weather conditions during vintage 2023.

As a Burgundy acolyte, Andries Burger, winemaker of Paul Clüver Family Wines in Elgin, found renewed respect for the vignerons of that famous French wine region with this year’s challenging weather conditions Paul Clüver Family Wines experienced during vintage 2023.

“Burgundy is known for steep variations from vintage to vintage due to the erratic weather conditions that differ every year in that part of the world,” says Burger.

“Being the coolest wine-growing region in South Africa, with steep diurnal temperature differences, our vines were healthy, disease-free and heading for even stages of ripening predicting another quality vintage,” says Burger.

Spring has broken in Burgundy, the cool air scented not by blossom or sun but by broken earth which is the very scent of life itself. From Gevrey-Chambertin, south through the vineyards of Musigny, Nuits-Saint-George, all the way down to Puligny-Montrachet, here soil is being broken between the vines. Magnificent gargantuan cart-horses walk sagely between the vineyards’ narrow rows drawing a plough that makes calm scraping sounds as the instrument’s single human driver follows behind.

I open the window on my side of the car, and the smell of wet, rich, ancient, live-giving soils of clay and marl and limestone is overwhelming. It smells of iron and stone, of cool and wet. Of goodness, and of peace. This extraordinary land, the most famous wine land in the world, is quiet. It is only the horses. And two, three individuals seated on benches among the vines, tending and caring and loving these magical mystical plants that, in six months’ time will give birth to the greatest of wines.

Ken Forrester recently announced the sale of the Ken Forrester Vineyards brand to French company Advini.

Their succession plan involves winemaker Shawn Matthyse, whom Ken has been mentoring for the past nine years.

With the recent release of the FMC 2022, their premium flagship Chenin from the 2.3ha old vineyard planted in 1974, Shawn continues to prove the success of Ken's mentorship method (the immersion method) and promises to secure the brand's future.

I don't know if they planned it like that, but when I walked into Ken Forrester's tasting room the day before Easter, I walked right into him distributing Easter eggs to the team. Winemaker, Shawn Matthyse, was busy helping out in the tasting room.

From harvest to the ProWein trade fair, catch up with the latest news from De Wetshof Estate.

Harvest 2023

Vintage 2023 will go down as one of the most memorable – and challenging – in the history of modern Cape wine, mostly as a result of the torrential rain experienced over most the winelands.

What began as a refreshingly brisk downpour in December extended into two deluges in March which bucketed down two weeks apart. Slap-bang in the middle of harvest for some wineries, this unseasonable precipitation had winemakers and vineyard teams frenetically trying to get their grapes into the cellar before the next rains came. As at the time or writing, some vineyards are still unpicked as the correct ripening levels are yet to be reached.

Make the the most of April at La Motte Estate.

April is the perfect autumn month. Not only does a plethora of public holidays invite you to slow down and prepare for winter, but in a country of extremes, April temperatures are also magnificently mellow.

Days are just warm enough to spend outside, enjoying the splendour of vineyard and oak leaves changing from their summer attire to charming yellows, oranges and browns. Cooler evenings tempt you to light a fire and open a wine that is a little fuller than your summer sippers. Do try the recently released 2022 La Motte Chardonnay. It is such a versatile partner to food and with its beautifully rounded notes, it is exactly what you would like to swirl in your glass right now.