Cederberg

The following wines are made by David Niewoudt, who took over the amazing Cederberg estate from his father in 1997. The vineyards here are 1100-1150 metres up in the Cederberg mountains, most of them on dramatic shale slopes. Good natural rainfall, around 550-600mm, cool temperatures (occasionally snow-showers in winter), with plenty of wind, mean that Cederberg enjoys a near perfect climate, in particular a long ripening period. The whites are mountain-fresh, with plentiful natural acidity.Not content with the efforts he has made at Cederberg - for example the new plantings into the hard shale slopes - he has also bought land in windswept Elim in the far south of the country on slate and granitic soils, and also in Chile.

Revisiting David’s reds, we can’t understand why we haven’t shipped these for years. Perhaps it’s the increasing vine age - both Cabernet and the Shiraz were planted in the late 1990s - but these latest vintages are grand. David has taken this estate to the top of the tree in the Cape.