Making wines in a simple way so as not to disturb the wines natural processes, our wines are fully organic and reflect the natural flavours of their place of origin.
We vinify each cultivar separately and use a combination of stainless-steel tanks and French oak barrels to ferment and mature them. After a few months, and when we are confident about the quality of each of the components, we blend them together and bottle them a few weeks later.
We try to keep the addition of SO2 to a minimum and we add no other chemical to the wines. In addition to EU and NOP organic regulations, the winemaking complies with the guidelines set by the Swartland Independent Producers (SIP) where the wines must be naturally produced and reflect the true sense of origin.
“Our soils are red and high in clay content. This produces wines that are dark, dense and masculine. Our mission in life is to tame them a bit and give them more subtle and feminine tones. We achieve this by using whole bunch fermentation, harvesting early and breaking the skins as little as possible.”
We have built an underground cellar using retired shipping containers, stones and other natural materials from our area. The idea is to create an environment for winemaking that is stable in temperature without using man made energy to do it.
Architectural concepts such as earth coupling, thermal mass, green roof and passive energy are all applied here
Over the years, we have had the privilege of working together with wonderful winemakers who have shown us the path to making great wines.
Jeremy Borg, Rolanie Lotz, and a few others helped us make wine in the early days, when we did not have our own cellar. Bryan MacRobert worked with us from 2013 to 2016, after which he decided to pay full attention to his own wine venture in Rioja, Spain. With Bryan we reached the Diners Club Wine Maker of the Year final in 2014 and harvested high ratings in Platter’s. Lieze Norval worked with us from 2017-2022, and helped us maintain our good ratings in Platter’s. With her, we developed our very special Amarillo, one of the few orange wines in South Africa, as well as our first single-varietal Tempranillo.
Billy and Kiki will now be spearheading the winemaking, taking the opportunity to experiment with new winemaking techniques, deeply explore the unique biology of our cellar, and continue improving the quality and finesse of Nativo Wines.
