Harvest Report 2025

The last of our red wines have been put into barrel and a first sensory assessment suggests a vintage with remarkable depth and vibrancy.

After dealing with the vagaries of drought, flooding and a pandemic over the last couple of years, we were finally blessed with a quintessential Helderberg vintage. The season was shaped by a very cold and wet winter which saw a later bud-burst than the preceding year. With the absence of any heat waves and cooler than usual weather in February, conditions were ideal for slow ripening and flavour development. A low diurnal temperature range during this time contributed towards low pH's, with some of the best analyses this humble cellar worker has seen in many a year.

After last years “shotgun” harvest, 2025 approached us much slower. The fruit was harvested in a nicely staggered fashion and measured on the stress barometer, it was relatively pain-free on our winemaking team. The whites are fresh and crisp with "ripping" acidities, while the reds are inky, kaleidoscopic and packing a real punch. We are amped to see how these wines develop in barrel but already they are displaying the classicism of typical Cape vintages such as 2009 and 2017. As the old-timey saying goes, "We'll see you on the other side"... hopefully with some beautiful new wines to show for it!