Top image: Andrew Harris

DGB, a leading South African producer and distributor of wine and spirits, has announced the appointment of Andrew Harris as Marketing Director of its Wine Division with effect from 1 July this year. Harris, who joined DGB in 2019 currently holds the position of Marketing Manager and succeeds industry stalwart Jacques Roux who is retiring after 18 years as Marketing Director.

Just over a month after beginning its 2021 harvest, Diemersdal Estate from Durbanville has bottled its first Sauvignon Blanc, the estate’s signature grape variety. The Diemersdal Sauvignon Blanc 2021 hit the market on 5 March, the first Sauvignon Blanc from this year’s Cape vintage to be found on shelf.

The second vintage of Diemersdal estate’s The Journal Sauvignon Blanc underscores this range’s commitment to showing the farm’s Durbanville terroir through classic, old-school styles of winemaking. The just-released The Journal Sauvignon Blanc 2020, following the maiden 2019 version introduced last year, is made from a single vineyard planted with vines of between 28 and 38 years old. The wine was fermented in barrel, after which it spent 11 months in new and second fill oak, the barrels specially made in France and Austria for Sauvignon Blanc aging.

The demand for organic wine and other sustainably farmed products is increasing drastically as a result of the year-long Corona crisis, with consumers becoming increasingly aware of the relationship between nutrition and health. According to Johan Gerber, general manager at Org de Rac, an organic wine farm in South Africa’s Swartland wine region, the international demand for organic wine has grown substantially since the outbreak of Covid-19 at the beginning of 2020.

The second vintage of Diemersdal’s Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc made on New Zealand’s South Island has landed in South Africa to give local wine-lovers a taste of the exuberant flavour spectrum offered by Sauvignon Blancs made in the Land of the Long White Cloud and for which the Kiwis have become world famous. 

As one of the oldest agricultural industries in the country, which supports the livelihoods of 269 000 employees, generates R55 billion in revenue for the economy and builds a strong brand reputation as a unique asset for the country, the South African wine industry has become part of our cultural and economic fabric.

Slow ripening of fruit in the vineyards due to a late summer has resulted in Franschhoek-based estate Chamonix anticipating harvest 2021 to kick-off 10 days later than average, with the Pinot Noir grapes being snipped in the first week of February. Neil Bruwer, Chamonix winemaker, says he already anticipated late onset of harvest when spring and early summer remained comfortably cool.

Top image caption: Johan Gerber

Johan Gerber has been appointed head manager at Org de Rac, the organic wine farm situated in the Swartland outside Piketberg which was founded by the late Nico Bacon in 2000. Gerber, who since 2016 was Production Manager and later winemaking manager at Origin Wine, has vast working experience at wineries in South Africa, as well as in California and Australia.

The latest release of the Chamonix Estate White Wine, made from Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon growing on this Franschhoek estate’s mountain vineyards represents an outstanding Cape white wine vintage, namely 2018 when the region was at the end of its crippling four-year drought. According to Niel Bruwer, Chamonix’s winemaker, the quality of the wines emerging from the 2018 vintage is testimony to the resilience of the vine as well its ability to produce extraordinary quality fruit under trying natural conditions.

Top image: Diemersdal team at Veritas. From left are Thys Louw, Mari Branders and Juandré Bruwer with Christo Pienaar, Veritas chairman.

Diemersdal Estate in Durbanville can record 2020 as its most successful year in the pursuing of wine accolades. The estate, which has been in the Louw family for six generations, ended the 2020 awards season with two Double Gold medals at the annual Veritas Wine Awards, South Africa’s most authoritative and most competitive wine competition. The medals were awarded to Diemersdal Winter Ferment Sauvignon Blanc 2020 and the estate’s Pinotage 2018, a wine in its premium The Journal range which was launched earlier this year.