Fynbos Estate

How we see it. A real place where magic happens Twenty years ago Johan and I decided to leave the city for a quiet and beautiful place in the country. We planned to grow and sell grapes and make a few bottles of wine for fun. But if we thought we could sit on our veranda and watch the grapes grow, life had other plans for us, and we have participated with delight, in a journey towards not only increased sustainability, but into a hive of activities involving many new spaces and a wide range of people. Thus currently we make natural hand-crafted wines in the old style of the 1900s as well as organic olive and lemon products. We host guests for getaways, retreats, workshops, fairs, music festivals, weddings and other celebrations, and we cook up a storm of seasonal homemade country food using seasonal and locally sourced ingredients. Perhaps most exciting has been turning the wonderful wild mountain land of the farm into a gazetted nature reserve. The journey has had its challenges - with twists and turns that have included hailstorms and mudslides, fearsome fires and fickle market forces, not to mention complex community politics and brain numbing bureaucracies. Part of the farm process has been setting up a farm worker crèche in Jourbertskloof - sadly with only partial success. Another is a determined pursuit to reduce our footprint and to use the farm to encourage conservation and wilderness education. But whatever events or processes happen at Fynbos it is always at heart a 'real' place – where real things happen to real people. As a result, and greatly heart-warming, is the growth of a community of past guests, friends, staff and volunteers who love the farm and have contributed to it – in whatever way. Most of all these eighteen years have been a great adventure for Johan and me, and however demanding, we would not have exchanged it for anything. What do we wish for, looking forward? That the adventure continues. That Johan, and Andy our annually visiting UK winemaker, have many harvests from which to make delicious wine. That we get to restock the reserve with indigenous animals. And that we get a bit more time off. But most of all we wish that the abundance of Fynbos and its beauty and peace will continue into the future to inspire people in positive and different ways.

Facilities