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.

The 2015 season can be characterized by considerable climatic fluctuations.

After a very short, cold winter in 2014, enough cold units were accumulated for even budding. Budding occurred about a week and half earlier than usual, because of the warm August weather.  The growing season was windy, and flowering was uneven, the latter resulting in uneven ripening.  Late spring and early summer were essentially warm and dry months, which accelerated ripening.  As a result of the heat the early cultivars ripened about two weeks earlier than usual.

Join us in our lush gardens for a live swing band filling the air with soulful music.

On Friday 21 November 2014, our Anthonij Rupert Wine Club Dinner was all about bubbles. We concluded this year’s dinners with an experience we know all our members would have prized, but only 20 had the opportunity of enjoying.

The historical building housing the oval casks and carvings at present, was built in 1799.  It was meticulously restored in 1985.  At the same time 24 oval shaped French oak barrels (2500 l) were installed with the aim of the ageing of wines, mostly red varietals.