SEVEN SPRINGS VINEYARD FROM THE BEGINNING

SEVEN SPRINGS VINEYARD FROM THE BEGINNING


The Hemel en Aarde Ridge ward is indeed a very exciting new wine area, producing (so far)elegant minerally driven moderate climate style white and red, one has to taste with Jean Claude Martin at Creation to understand the passion and drive to make some of the very best wines not only in the valley but in South Africa, with international benchmark or at Mount Babylon's with Johan Holtzhauzen and try his Methode Cap Classique Shiraz Rose, these are food friendly wines.

Seven Springs is one of the latest to join that very special area, I will review their maiden vintage 2010 Sauvignon Blanc within the next 2 weeks and will report on my findings!


In the meantime learn more from the words of Seven Springs owner Tim Pearson.

“We are situated 3kms down the road from Creation (just past the Tolbos apple farm) on the same side as Creation.

We are just out of the Hemel en Aarde Ridge ward and just out of the Walker Bay area. This does not bother me as it does not matter where we are, as long as our wines are of a high quality.

Please have a look at our Flickr photos below, http://www.flickr.com/photos/sevenspringsvineyard/ it will give you an idea of the layout of our vineyard on north and south facing slopes.

Our wines will be made from Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah.

We hope to build a winery and tasting room in 2011

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.

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.

During 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 wine lands 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.

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.

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.

During 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.

2009 saw 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 be in February and March of 2011 with launch into the market likely later that year.

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.

It was in the latter part of this year that we established our branding with Marcel de Quervain (www.curv8.com).

Marcel was responsible for creating the branding for the iconic Innocent range of products in the UK.

January of 2010 saw the 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, on his family vineyard next to ours, will be picked in the last week of February and our Syrah 2 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. Riana will make Seven Springs first vintage at the award winning Iona Vineyards in Elgin.

Our website (www.7springs.co.za) was launched on the 16th February 2010 as was the Seven Springs Vineyard Facebook site and the 7SpringsWine Twitter.

Our first grapes, Sauvignon Blanc, were hand picked on the 22nd of February 2010 followed by the Chardonnay a week later and our Syrah in early March.

All of our vines were harvested at optimum fruit ripeness and the grapes were then fermented in stainless steel tanks.

Our Sauvignon Blanc remained in the tank whilst our Chardonnay and Syrah were transferred to French oak barrels.

We have used second and third fill barriques to gently ‘marry’ with our wine, allowing our fruit to express itself with the oak providing a supporting role.

The style we are looking for with our Chardonnay and Syrah is ultimately one of delicate balance between fruit and oak.

Sauvignon Blanc has now been planted in a 1 hectare site on the highest, and coolest, point of our south facing slopes.

The vines were planted in June 2010 below the watchful eye and slopes of Shaws Mountain

Our Sauvignon Blanc from the 2010 vintage was bottled on the 6th of August (4,400 bottles) and then labelled on the 11th of October. The wine will be sold in South Africa and the UK.

Our Chardonnay and Syrah are snug in their French oak barrels with the Chardonnay being bottled early 2011 and the Syrah later in the year.

Our winemaker Riana is spending the 2010 harvest (September to the end of November) in Oregon, USA, at Adelsheim Vineyard.

This will give Riana great exposure to some of the best Pinot Noirs produced in the USA, helping her to understand the complexities of this variety.

Our first small production of Pinot Noir could now be as early as 2011 as our young vines seem to be of an excellent quality.

November 2010 saw our wines going on sale in South Africa at Cybercellar (www.cybercellar.co.za) and the Wine Village in Hermanus (www.wine-village.co.za) and our first restaurant listing in South Africa with 24 bottles going to the acclaimed 96 Winery Road restaurant in the Cape winelands near Somerset West.

2,400 bottles also landed at Tilbury docks, London, on Monday the 8th, ready to launch into the UK market.

We have also had superb feedback on the quality of our wine from wine writers in South Africa.

Everyone in South Africa who has tasted our wine so far has given it a big thumbs up. I am so proud of Riana our young winemaker."

Tim Pearson