The Bottega family’s farm, Da Capo Vineyards, which lies on the slopes of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains in the Sir Lowry’s Pass hills, is 150 Hectares large, 35 of which are under vine. In a concerted effort to leave as little impact upon the land, the Bottega Family have worked closely with various nature conservation groups to leave the upper slopes of their farm as alien-free as possible, and thereby allowing the wildlife and fynbos to flourish.

The Cape Leopard Trust was established in 2004 as a conservation organization to collect research on the abstruse Cape mountain leopards and to find solutions to the human-wildlife conflict situations, which had arisen at the time between sheep farmers and natural predators such as the Cape mountain leopard. In order to study the elusive cats, cameras with movement sensors were set up within the Cedarberg, Boland and Gouritz area’s to survey the leopards.