It was with some measure of anticipation that we awaited the report of the wine industry’s leading authority Tim Atkins’ annual review of South African wines.  

Vernon van der Hoven, winemaker at Anthonij Rupert Wyne is quietly excited as he speaks about the new Cape of Good Hope cellar being commissioned for the very first time this year. ”It’s an absolute pleasure to work in the new cellar - we have so much space this year!”

“Drought, water and prayers!” These words pretty much sum up the lead up to the 2018 harvest season.

In all my years I have never experienced a drought like this. Working with water has now become like working with gold. 

We at Anthonij Rupert Wyne are striving to be at the forefront of innovation in saving water and also looking after our community. We have put up 10 000 L tanks at all the schools in the Franschhoek area to ensure that all learners have clean drinking water on a daily basis.

South Africa’s Old Vines Initiative, which was launched in 2006 by Johann Rupert to preserve the wine industry’s heritage, has been lauded by internationally recognized journalist and industry influencer, Jancis Robinson. 

Anthonij Rupert Wyne has introduced another first for South Africa, a premium Provençal style rosé that pays homage to Jean Roi, the French Huguenot from Provence who pioneered the L’Ormarins Wine Estate’s 300-year-old viticultural history. 

The 2017 harvest will be recorded as one of the driest harvest seasons ever in South Africa. There has been exceptionally little rain from the middle of September 2016 until April 2017 and as a result no vineyard diseases. This very dry weather has resulted in a major drought throughout the Western Cape. 

The 2017 vintage kicked off very early for Anthonij Rupert Wyne on the 6th of January this year. We started the harvest with Chardonnay from our La Garonne farm for the Brut.

At Anthonij Rupert Wyne the 2016 vintage has been completed and we are quite excited about the quality of our wines, produced under most challenging conditions.

During the 2016 harvest we experienced extremely hot and dry conditions, which of course impacted on our water resources as well as our available ground water.  Continuous strong winds in January accelerated berry ripening, also a harvest time that was more or less two weeks earlier.

The purpose of this Harvest report is to give our readers some idea of the climatic conditions prevailing in the 2015 season and clarify matters by a summary of crops and vintage as from January 2015.

The season of 2015 can be characterized by considerable climatic fluctuations.  At first it appeared that there would be a larger crop earlier in the season, but because of windy conditions during flowering and fruit set, it resulted in looser bunches.  The subsequent warmer weather during harvest also contributed to a smaller crop, the latter being the result of berry shriveling in most late cultivars.  Fortunately it was a healthy, positive year with no significant outbreaks of diseases or insect pests.