SEVEN SPRINGS VINEYARD FROM THE BEGINNING – BY TIM PEARSON
Passionate about wine, I had long dreamt about owning my own vineyard, this is story of my dream becoming a reality. For a number of years our family holidays had been taken in Europe and South Africa where my enthusiasm for great wine and knowledge of complexities of production grew. In 1993 I had the opportunity to visit the London International Wine & Spirits Fair and I was truly hooked.
Seven Springs - Overberg
In 1994 I worked for six months in South Africa and although back in the UK was lucky enough to make contact with two of South Africa’s leading winemakers, Beyers Truter from Beyerskloof in Stellenbosch and Danie de Wet from De Wetshof Estate in Robertson.
In 2005, during a return visit to South Africa to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, my wife, Vaughan, and I explored the possibility of buying a small wine farm or some land which could be brought into production as vineyard.
Whilst on the trip we looked at land near Stellenbosch with a local agent but due to the cost of the land felt my dream would stay just that, a dream. However during our visit we travelled through much of the Cape winelands and drove on to Hermanus where we visited Hamilton Russell Vineyards and Bouchard Finlayson in the picturesque Hemel en Aarde (Heaven on Earth) Valley. It was at this point that Vaughan said “if we are going to buy anywhere, this area would be the perfect place”. The challenge was now to find suitable land in this truly beautiful valley, where top class wines were being produced, but land would be extremely hard to come by.
Babylons Peak
Returning to the UK and my job as Managing Director of my cleaning company, Goldcrest Cleaning Ltd, I set about using the internet to search for any suitable land in the area. To my absolute amazement, in December 2005, I discovered some land for sale 10 minutes drive down the valley from the Sumaridge Winery. After contacting the sellers, father and son farmers, Brian and James Davison, and receiving several reports on the suitability of the soil for wine grape production, Vaughan and I decided to travel back to the Cape in January 2006.
During the visit we made the decision to buy a portion of the land available (called Vrede which in Afrikaans means Peace) and purchased 12 hectares of north and south facing land, suitable for the production of red and white grape varieties. Much viticultural advice was sought regarding the choice of planting and eventually we settled on Pinot Noir and Syrah for the red varieties and Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc for the whites. The land lies at the foot of Shaw’s Mountain to the north and the Kleinrivier Mountains to the south, beyond which is the Atlantic Ocean.
July 2007 saw our first 2 hectares of Syrah planted on north facing slopes and 1.87 hectares of Chardonnay on the south facing slopes. Later in that year 1.9 hectares of mature Blue Gum (Eucalyptus) trees on the edge of the land were grubbed up to make way for planting Sauvignon Blanc grapes, although time is required for the soil to recover and improved for optimum vine growing.
The look and feel
July and early August of 2008 we planted 3.41 hectares of Pinot Noir on north facing slopes (the reason for not planting Pinot Noir in 2007 was that KWV, our rootstock supplier, did not have suitable clones of the variety in stock. These had to be ordered and then grafted onto the correct rootstock for planting in 2008). The very best virus free rootstock has been used in all plantings.
2008 also saw the planting of 200 Frantoio olive trees, from the Morgenster olive farm, around the perimeter of the vineyard area to allow future production of a single variety olive oil.
In 2009 we have seen the planted vines mature with a view to a test harvest in 2010. The final parcel of land will be planted with Sauvignon Blanc in 2010 and our first true harvest will in March and April of 2011 with launch into the market likely in 2012. Over time our vineyard will produce in the region of 50-60,000 bottles and bringing it to market will no doubt be our biggest challenge.
Tim and Riana
2010 saw our appointment of Riana van der Merwe as our winemaker. 25 year old Riana comes highly recommended to us by our friend Guillaume Nell, winemaker at Backsberg. Our first harvest started on Thursday the 11th of February with the picking of our Chardonnay grapes. The quality looks excellent. Our Sauvignon Blanc (from grapes grown by Peter, our vineyard manager, in his family vineyard next to ours, will be picked in the last week of February and our Syrah 3 weeks later. We will produce approximately 9,000 bottles from our first harvest as we are limiting grape quantity and concentrating on quality fruit. This will also allow our young vines to develop fully. Seven Springs first vintage will be made at award winning Iona Vineyards in Elgin. Want to know more? Seven Springs web | Seven Springs photo | Wine Passionista | Two Wine Brothers | Shine
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Tags: 7 Springs, Beyerskloof, Davison, De Wetshof, Elgin, GoldCrest Cleaning, Hermanus, Iona, new Winery, Pinot Noir, Riana van der Merwe, Tim Pearson
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