It was 1920. King George V was on the English throne as Jakobus Hendrik de Wet carefully planted his vines of Muscat d’Alexandrie in South Africa’s Breedekloof valley. In 1936, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for a second term when the “La Colline” semillon vineyard was laid out on the outskirts of Franschhoek. In 1964, as the Rolling Stones dropped their debut album, farmers Basie van Lill and Joshua Visser were planting chenin blanc on a lonely mountain called Skurfberg.
These roots are still producing grapes, and it’s this rich viticultural heritage that South Africa’s Old Vine Project (OVP) is working to protect, by celebrating the quality and complexity of the wines made from them.
Viticulturist Rosa Kruger started the OVP in 2002 when she began searching for legacy vineyards in South Africa’s Western Cape winelands, scribbling her finds in a battered notebook in between her consulting work. In 2016, Johann Rupert, the billionaire chairman of Swiss-based conglomerate Richemont and owner of Franschhoek wine estate L’Ormarins, agreed to provide seed funding. It proved a tipping point.
