The 2013 harvest looks very promising at this stage, with a cold winter, lots of rain, followed by a cool spring behind us. Early summer was cool with a hot week before Christmas. Lets hope the weather stays fairly moderate as we head into veraison. Susan and Ansoné are particularly interested in the Pinot Noir and Riesling coming into maiden vintage from our Elgin vineyards.

2012 kicked off on a very special and high note: the premiere of the hit Afrikaans romatic comedy, Semi-Soet which was shot on the estate and featured Vrede en Lust as itself (with some different characters of course!). The movie has done extremely well, running for a record season in the movies houses, then on to DVD release, Pay per View release on DSTV and now on Apple’s iTunes for all the overseas folks.

It was only a huge pleasure and privilege being able to work with Anel and James Alexander as well as their top notch team. Professional, friendly and just plain great people. Thanks Semi-Soet – you really helped up a LOT! We wish you well in your new ventures and you will always be friends of Vrede en Lust.

New Boet Erasmus Packaging

The 2012 harvest was a great one; both in terms of quality and quantity. We had no disease problems and a late harvest, which meant extra hang time for greater flavour development. We crushed just over 700 tons, our largest harvest to date. The Elgin vineyard are maturing into fine quality production and we had the best ever Cabernet Sauvignon from our Simonsberg vineyards. Susan gave birth to little Anna weeks after the harvest ended, so a tough one for Susan with lots of help from Ansoné.

Some of our 2012 wines have been released  - the Jess 2012 in May 2012, the Mocholate Malbec 2012 in Oct, the Red Lady Merlot 2012 in November and the revamped Sarah 2012 in December. Sarah has graduated from high school and changed from an unwooded Chardonnay to a more complex and interesting Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Viognier blend that is flying out of the tasting room!

During the year, we started rolling out our updated label design, done by Vanessa Fogel. The brief was to create 4 more distinct tiers (Entry,Mid,Flagship plus Artisan), but to ensure visual continuity with the previous labels at the same time. I think she achieved the brief objectives perfectly! As we move to new vintage releases, the new labels will roll out across the range.

The 2012 cool climates whites from our Elgin vineyard are getting ready for release in the coming months. We aim to release them at least a year post harvest, in order to get them to the right level of maturation which is slower for cool climate wines. The 2011 Barrique and 2011 Artisan Range Chenin Blanc (single vineyard) were both rated 5 stars in Neil Pendock’s new blind tasted wine guide. The Barrique also rated in the Top 6 South African white blends by Classic Wine.

At Wine-X in Johannesburg we had the unique experience of 4 wines in the top 10 wines on show as rated by the public and in fact 7 wines in the top 20 overall. The Boet Erasmus 2009 was rated #1 red wine with the Barrique 2011 rated #2 white wine on show. The Jess 2012 was the only Rosé in the Top 10 white wines! That is really a fantastic achievement and testimony to the joint efforts in the vineyards, cellar and tasting team coming together perfectly.

Visitors Votes for Favourite Wines on Show for 850+ wines from 170 wineries

In August Etienne took over the day to day management of Vrede en Lust, following 14 years as partner and manager of the farming and vineyard operations. The transition was smooth and easy. He has been doing a great job and his focus is evident in the solid growth achieved over last year. Etienne has a very strong team in place now, with lots of momentum. I continue as owner and ‘chairman’ of the business, working with the team re strategy and direction.

MeiJun Wu joined us as our first International employee, based in Shenzen, Guandong Province, China. We have been working on the Chinese market for a few years now, but decided that the language and communication barriers were too severe without local presence. May has done a great job so far, with the first container getting ready for shipment. We are very excited about the growth opportunities ahead in China, as the wine market there develops in leaps and bounds.

Tammy Bloom joined us as Johannesburg sales rep in October which has really helped grow the Gauteng sales. Karen Coyne joined as KZN sales rep late in the year, rounding out our regional sales team. We have done very well in the retail environment this year and will put more effort into the restaurant business in 2013.

Solar Power Installation at Vrede en Lust Winery

Electricity became our second largest direct input expense, following years of relentless price hikes from ESKOM. Guided by our brother Johan Buys’ expertise in the solar energy field, we set up a plan to build an photo-voltaic solar energy plant large enough to meet the winery’s annual energy needs. Installation of the 220KWp plant started in November and is due for completion early in the new year. This will ensure we have much more control over our energy costs going forward whilst also making a significant contribution of the environment as part of our process of becoming a carbon neutral winery.

Our tasting room team has done so well, achieving both record wine sales and great reviews on TripAdvisor, where we are rated the #3 activity in the Franschhoek valley. Our hospitality division has also been pulling in solid reviews, with a significant move up into the TripAdvisor Franschhoek Top-10 under Lynne’s caring touch. Those of you who know the valley, will know there is a lot of serious competition here!

Last but not least, thanks to your support, we have had a very busy and successful Christmat/New Year holiday season at the farm!

Here is a quote from the BusinessDay article referred to:

During its briefing to the MPs, Eskom said it was at least 15 years out from instituting inflation cost tariff increases as it needed 16% increases for the next five years, then followed by a similar period of 20% increases, with a final five years of 9% hikes.

For businesses, farms, schools and households alike, this should ring major alarm bells. For us as a winery, electricity is our 2nd biggest monthly expense (behind salaries & wages). Our electricity costs increased by 140% over the past 4 years. Apart from the direct electricity expenses, we have seen bottle costs rocket as the glass producers claim it is one of their major cost components.

In a tough economy, it has been very difficult to pass these cost increases on to the consumer. Wineries have thus seen significant margin pressure. The only way we can prevent this from happening to us in future, is by installing our own solar energy plant, which will basically fix our energy costs for the next 25 years.

We are well underway with our 220 KWp solar installation and very happy we took the plunge when we did! If you don’t take control over your own destiny, the graph below shows should give you a wake up call! This is what that translates to in terms of electricity prices over the next 15 years:

Going green has never looked better from a bottom line perspective!

As with previous years, WineX allowed wine lovers to vote for their favourite wines. This is a very important recognition for us, as it is the wine buying public voting. We really value these views even more than the wine judging at competitions.

This year the organisers used tablets from Samsung to get the voting done more securely and with scores shown live throughout the event. We are very proud to announce the following results:

• Red Wines: # 1 Vrede en Lust Boet Erasmus 2009; #3 Vrede en Lust Mocholate Malbec 2012
• White Wines: #2 Vrede en Lust Barrique 2011; #3 Vrede en Lust Caseys Ridge Viognier 2011; 

That is an unbelievable 4 wines amongst the top 10 wines (actually 4 of the Top 6!), as voted by the public! We find it interesting that both these red wines are made from our Vrede en Lust estate grapes WO Simonsberg-Paarl and both the white wines are made from our Elgin vineyard (Casey’s Ridge) grapes.

Congratulations to Susan and Ansonè, for making wines that the public enjoy so much and also to Anneke and her WineX A-team, who presented the wines with so much infectious passion! It takes both sets of contributions to achieve this level of recognition.

Update to the WineX Sandton Best Red & White wines with the official WineX Newsletter out:
Boet Erasmus 2009 #1 Red with Mocholate Malbec 2012 and Syrah 2009 also in Top 10!
Barrique 2011 #2 White, with Caseys Ridge Viognier 2011, Jess 2012 Rose and Caseys Ridge Sauvignon Blanc 2012 in the Top 10.
7 wines in the the Top 20 out of more than 850 wines on show! Thanks to all who voted for our wines and the A-team who makes it happen at the wine shows!!

As before I continue to hope that Michael Fridjhon will add a Rosè category to the list at some stage. Using technology now, it should be easy to allow voters to cast votes for their favourite Rosè as well as their favourite bubbly. That would really round out the set of favourites properly.

We have done well at WineX over the years and are very thankful for that:

2009 RMB WineX Cape Town

• Red Wines: Both Boet Erasmus 2007 and  Malbec 2008 in the Top 10
• White Wines: Both Viognier 2009 and Sauvignon Blanc 2009 in the Top 10

2009 RMB WineX Gauteng

• White Wines: #3 Viognier 2009
• Vrede en Lust received the most votes overall for the range on show

2010 RMB WineX Cape Town

• Red Wines: Shared #1 Mocholate Malbec 2009, #2 Boet Erasmus 2007
• White Wines: Viognier 2009 in the Top 10

2010 RMB WineX Gauteng

• Red Wines: #5 Boet Erasmus 2007
• White Wines: #1 Viognier 2010

2011 RMB WineX Cape Town

• Red Wines: Boet Erasmus 2008 in the Top 10
• White Wines: #3 Viognier 2011, Sauvignon Blanc 2010 in the Top 10

2011 RMB WineX Gauteng 

• Voted the most Memorable Exhibitor overall.

Solar Panels

The Vrede en Lust winery, in the beautiful Franschhoek wine valley, has commissioned MLT Drives (Pty) Ltd of Cape Town to install a 218 KWp solar power plant. The leading edge photo-voltaic (PV) solar plant will generate 374,000 kWh annually, enough to meet the winery’s power needs. Vrede en Lust aims to become a carbon neutral winery in the near future.

MLT Drives was contracted to design and install the solar energy system. The complete installation will cover an area of 1,600m². The 1,000-panel installation will be the largest at a winery in South Africa to date. The Vrede en Lust solar energy installation is also the first project to be approved under the Eskom rebate scheme for small-scale renewable energy.

“We were pleasantly surprised that the Eskom process was painless, with great responsiveness and a very quick turnaround time” noted Dana Buys, owner of Vrede en Lust

15% of the panels will be installed on the winery roof and the rest will be installed along Vrede en Lust’s border with Plaisir de Merle. “We looked into a green and more sustainable approach to the winery’s energy needs for some time. The PV solar market has reached the tipping point, where it makes complete sense to install. The Eskom rebate helped to seal the deal. The project brings significant financial as well as environmental benefits to our business” said Buys.

Apart from saving more than eleven thousand tons of CO2 over its 30 year life, the project will also save fifteen million liters of water, 6,200 tons of coal and nearly two thousand tons of ash.

Considering that one ton of CO2 at 560 cubic meters is the same size as a large hot-air balloon, picture eleven thousand hot-air balloons to get a visual image of the so-called greenhouse gas saving!

The inverters and solar panels were sourced from local manufacturers to reduce the carbon footprint of the installation and aid in supporting the local industry.

The inverters to be used at Vrede en Lust are 3 MLT Karoo70 inverters for large power plants and was designed for the African climate.

During the daylight hours, power generated by the PV cells will supplement the power usage of the farm, reducing electricity usage from Eskom. The areas where solar panels could be fitted were divided into three sections, together forming a long semi-uninterrupted line. Great care was taken with the design of the special mounting structure as well as how it is to be incorporating it into the existing vineyard.

A display screen will be located in the wine tasting areas. The visitors will be able to see information on the technology installed at Vrede en Lust and have the PV system incorporated showing live system performance and CO2 emission reduction.

Eskom has launched a rebate scheme for smaller renewable energy technologies, including renewable energy, wind, hydro and others. It has started a pilot phase over 3 years, with a target of 10MW over this period and project sizes from 10KWp to maximum 1MWp as target.

The program will be rolled out in terms of Eskom IDM’s Standard Offer Program (SOP), and later also in terms of the IDM Standard Product program. There will be additional requirements over and above the existing SOP process. The proposed rebate is pegged at R1.20 per KWh over a 3-year period, with a disbursement as per SOP rules (70% on commissioning, there after 10% at end of years 1,2 and 3).

We are very happy to welcome May Wu (Wu, Meijun for those who understand the Chinese way of stating a name) to the Vrede en Lust team! May, pictured above with Susan and Etienne at a wine show in Guangzhou last year, will be based in the city of Shenzhen, in Guandong province, China. We have met May a few times at wine shows in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Last year she interviewed Susan for one of the TV programs at one of the wine shows. We were fortunate to have met May and the timing was right to get her onboard as she was very passionate about our wines and brand heritage.

We have been interested in the Chinese market for wines for some time now and came to the conclusion that if we want to succeed there, we need to have our own person on the ground. It is just too difficult with the massive language barriers.

We would do a wine show, meet a lot of prospects, converse with them via a translator and then try and follow up. But most of them do not understand English and when we get Chinese emails we are at a total loss too!

May studied Hospitality and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and has been working in the wine industry in Guandong province. She has also done articles on wine for local print media as well as participate in TV shows focussing on food and wine pairing.

May is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, which will hopefully remove our communication obstacles! She has already set up a Chinese blog for Vrede en Lust and will become active in the Chinese social media promoting Vrede en Lust wines.

We will initially focus the bulk of our efforts on Guangdong province, which is located just north of Hong Kong and one of China’s most dynamic provinces, with a population of about 105 million people. It is the richest province in China, with an annual GDP of more than R 6 trillion!

Guangdong has one of the highest per capita income levels of all China’s 22 provinces, the most billionaires in China and a relatively well established wine industry. The major city of Guangdong is Guanzhou, which is one of the 3 top cities in China along with Beijing and Shanghai.

The modern infrastructure, including high speed rail network,  makes travel throughout Guangdong very fast and efficient. Located just above Hong Kong also has its benefits.

China is so big and vast that a producer of our size cannot really try and target the country. We think we will be most successful focussing primarily on Guangdong for the foreseeable future.

We are very optimistic about our long term prospects there vs some of the traditional markets: The USA is a highly regulated market with access restricted via its archaic 3-tier alcohol distribution laws. The UK is controlled by a few massive retailers that are only deal driven. In Europe one has to compete with a huge domestic wine industry that receives many billions of Euros per annum in subsidies.

It is still the early days of establishing a wine culture in China, but it will evolve and develop fast, as does all things in China! We will soon fly May over to Vrede en Lust to spend some time here, getting to know everyone and everything about the wines, the people and the place.

Etienne is well versed in all aspects of the Vrede en Lust business and has worked closely with the winemakers as well as the hospitality division over the years. He has attended a few of the international trade shows, especially to China, which is our key investment market at this time.

Etienne takes over the day to day responsibilities from his brother Dana Buys, who will become chairman and remain involved with the strategic decision making and overall review of the business.

Dana feels that the foundation is well in place to achieve the company’s growth objectives with a strong team under Etienne. He will focus his time and energy on a new technology company, TallOrder Solutions, that he co-founded in 2010 with long time business partner Ferdi Ladeira.

TallOrder is now at launch stage following 24 months of software development. The TallOrder technology uses the so-called ‘Cloud’ and mobile devices to bring new levels of service and self-service to the hospitality industry. TallOrder was actually inspired by the frustration of trying to improve service at the restaurant on the farm, using handheld, mobile ordering devices.

To help celebrate a Season of France and the twinning between the Rhône-Alpes Region, there are 10 winemaker coming down from France to participate in Bastille, along with their top wines, to help take Bastille a few notches up! We expect a few top French chefs as well.

The 2012 Bastille festival will start on Friday the 13th of July with some technical wine tastings for the Vignerons de Franschhoek. The goal of course, is learning and working together, in order to raise the standard of all wines produced by members. There will be some more tastings in the afternoon and a VIP event for local media, government officials and dignitaries held at La Motte in the evening. The public side of Bastille will be held over the 14th and the 15th of July.

Vrede en Lust and Cotage Fromage  will both have a stand in the main Food and Wine marquee and two of our wines will be included in the tutored tastings. The winery will of course be open during the weekend so those wishing a more relaxed breakfast on the way in to Franschhoek, coffee on the way back or even a tasting of the full range! We have some accommodation available but early booking is essential!

There will be some special tutored tastings held by the French winemakers on Saturday and Sunday mornings at grand Provence, ahead of the rest of daily activities. In addition to the top Rhone wines, there will be a selection of the best of Franschhoek’s wines included and the selection will be different each day. These tastings will cost R395 per person and tickets are on sale at Webtickets. Due to limit seating, early reservations will be essential, so please dont snooze if you are a wine lover!

In addition to the normal Bastille Food & Wine Marquee (access at R150 per person per day), there will also be a VIP Marquee this year, featuring the French winemakers, their wines and the top Rhone style wines from the Vignerons de Franschhoek. There will also be some relaxing areas, a food platter and access to the Food & Wine marque. Access to the VIP marquee will cost R395 per person per day and is limited to only 200 tickets per day. Early booking is going to be essential, via Webtickets!

The good news, is that the wines showcases by the French winemakers will also be available for sale at the festival! New this year will also be a hall featuring a larger range of French products, including top imported cheeses, champagnes etc. A great reason to plan a weekend in the beautiful Franschhoek wine valley!

What do we have to show for our efforts thus far? Not much really. A number of smaller orders of a few palettes here and there. Our Boet Erasmus and Viognier wines are most popular. It is a very tough market to break into due to the head start enjoyed by the French, plus free-trade agreements between China and the likes of Chile, New Zealand and I believe Australia.

Why do we keep trying? The Chinese wine market last year consumed more than 150 million 9L cases of wine, nearly half of that consumed by the largest market for wine in the world – the USA. The Chinese market for wine is growing really fast (imports up more than 70% last year) and the market is still in its infancy. The European markets are slow and local producers get a lot of EU help, making it tougher for imported wines. So we have to go to China, learn and update our plans for such an important market going forward.

To put yourself into the typical Chinese consumer’s shoes, and understand exactly why it is so tough, I took this photo of a spirits section in a Chinese shop. On the top row there are some imported brands and I could figure out what was on offer. Below them it becomes impossible to figure out unless you can read Chinese! How do you decide what to buy?

It is critical to realize that to the vast majority of Chinese wine buyers, our wines look exactly the same to them. Apart from images, colours and numbers, they cannot read anything also on the labels or packaging! Can’t read the wine names, the cultivars, country nor region of origin,  nor competition name on any medals.

That makes it extremely difficult to communicate with the local wine buyers. It is just as hard to try follow up by email or phone call without the translator present. So much for most of the leads that cost so much to generate.

We are now working on Version 3 of the Vrede en Lust China plan. I can’t really disclose too much in a public space like this, given that competitors also read the blog, but I will say that less is more. We will go to a 1 wine strategy for the Chinese market and focus on 1 of the 22 provinces. We don’t have enough wine for the whole of China anyway, nor enough money to try and market to the whole country.

In addition we will employ a full time person fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English on the ground in China, store the selected wine in a bonded warehouse so that we can supply the wine on a CIF basis (the Chinese buyers prefer CIF to FOB Cape Town!), And if that does not word we will work on Version of the Vrede en Lust China Plan. I do feel good about this version though!

It was clear that Semi-Soet held great potential for Vrede en Lust as a brand to get on board and become part of this new Afrikaans production as the main location for the film. As well-experienced the cast and crew were, I think we are still amazed at how excellent this entire project was executed and how well it has been received by the South African public to date.

The movie has enjoyed a great run in theaters. To date, nearly 300,000 people have seen the movie. According to the Alexanders,  the highlight for them as producers has been the overwhelmingly positive feedback. Film critics rated Semi-Soet highly and it is  clear that the South African audience  loved it too!

Semi-Soet’s attendance soon beat the previous Afrikaans success story Platteland  (released late November 2011): in the 3^rd weekend of Semi-Soet’s run , it surpassed Platteland’s attendances by 111,7%, setting it up for the 4^thweekend by 176,5%, the 5^th weekend by 402,7%, the 6^th weekend by 278,4% and the 7^th weekend by 301,8%! Semi-Soet is currently still showing at just over 30 theatres while in its 9^th week!

The latest box office figures showed that up until the 8^th week, Semi-Soet has generated a total of R8 million nett at Box Office. Typically, the DVD sales and Pay TV agreements are worth more than box office sales, so the Producers are rather excited to see what the lifetime holds for this Afrikaans romcom. The planned release date for the DVD is 30 April and currently it is the top DVD on pre-orders on Kalahari.net!

The cast included former Afrikaans soap 7de Laan stars like Nico Panagio and Diaan Lawrenson,  Paul du Toit (Binnelanders) and Corine du Toit. The talented Sandra Vaughn (from Getroud met Rugby) was both the scriptwriter and one of the main characters in the movie. Her character  falls in love with comedian Louw Venter. These two characters  caused lots of laughs in the movie.

The crew booked in on the 17^th of April last year and by the 5^th of May they had completed  the wine farm scenes that made up almost 70% of the movie. The weather, true to the Cape, gave them some  breathtaking summer days and some cold, rainy days, perfect for  their fireplace scenes.

Although some of the shots in the movie look  too good to be true, the director promises he did not edit the lighting and colour at all! It is one of the suprises of  the film and something that struck our consciousness – to see how beautiful our workplace is on the big screen!

Anel and James had a very competent team that came on board, like the Director Joshua Rous, who worked on a previous film with Anel and James, called “Discreet” where they co-starred. Scramble Productions is the Alexanders’ start-up production company.

We  accommodated most of the cast and crew on our premises during their shooting period. With them sleeping and shooting in the same spaces, it contributed a great deal to the feel and the experience they had and created on set.  The energetic, positive and kind group of people got the opportunity to truly experience our historic Manor House and Jonkmanshuis. Chef Duncan from Cotage Fromage prepared a delicious buffet every morning and afternoon.  Many thought it was the best on-set food ever!

In February this year we were involved in both the Johannesburg and Cape Town movie premieres. The Jo’burg premiere hosted 1,000 guests at the Montecasino Nu Metro theatres. The majority of guests were local celebrities, singers, actors, filmmakers, sponsors, media and corporates. Because of our partnership and wine sponsorship for these events and further marketing initiatives, we were also granted a certain number of complimentary invitations which we extended to our Gauteng-based Wine club members. They had the opportunity to be part of this classy, formal event and to share the red carpet with some big local personalities.

The Cape Town premiere was on a much smaller scale and hosted entirely by us, so we had the opportunity to invite  our Cape Town-based Wine club members, friends and family, the local media partners plus some cast’s friends or family that could not make the Jo’burg event. It was another classy event, but more intimate than the Jo’burg one, hosted at The Fugard Theatre in District six.

James from Salt & Pepper Catering added to a lovely evening with delicious canapés and of course all our passionate ladies in red were serving our Jess Dry Rosé, Sauvignon Blanc or Boet Erasmus wines. They looked just as elegant as the movie stars! To add to the romantic ambiance, we partnered with Lindt to provide delicious dark chocolate to pair with the Boet Erasmus!

There were a mix of Afrikaans and English-speaking guests and the feedback on the night was that it was greatly enjoyed and definitely exceeded everyone’s  expectations. It is a movie that portrays the Afrikaner in a more aspiring manner vs the slapstick movies of late.

In addition to the release of the movie, we launched a limited edition of the Boet Erasmus 2008. We named the wine “Vryersvoetpad” after the scene in the movie where Jaci (Alexander) and JP (Panagio) walk a lover’s lane of sorts and end up being chased by a pig into a dam and ended in a tree. The image on the label of the wine is synonymous with the imagery from the scene. Each bottle is numbered to a total of 1,400 and very little stock is still available from Makro and our tasting room. For Semi-Soet lovers, this wine can remain a collector’s item or serve well on a romantic date!

If you have not seen the movie, whether you are English or Afrikaans, we want to encourage you to go watch the movie, even if it is just to support a bit of local romantic-comedy. I am almost sure to say that you will be pleasantly surprised! And if you still don’t like watching Afrikaans movies (with English sub-titles), at least you will see how stunning Vrede en Lust looks on big screen!

We will have another movie night at Vrede en Lust for all the farm staff that has not yet seen the movie, pure with popcorn, Coke and a big screen!

We are very happy that Anel walked in here that day! James, Anel and the rest of the team, from our side CONGRATULATIONS on pulling together such a quality production and for making Vrede en Lust one of the stars in it!

Local is lekker!
To read more about the movie visit our website

We crushed a total of 701 tons this harvest – our biggest crush to date. The 2012 crush is 22% larger overall than the 2011 crush, most of the growth due to our Elgin vineyards getting to more mature production.

Our winery’s maximum capacity is about 750 tons, but due to the late harvesting of the grapes from the Simonsberg-Paarl vineyards, things were tight in the winery this year. Susan and Ansone had to shuffle and plan tanks very carefully to make everything fit in.

In ‘normal (if there is such a thing anymore) years’ we would have been done with the reds from Simonsberg-Paarl a few weeks earlier, which would leave more space in the winery for the Elgin reds coming in. The cool early spring and early summer resulted in much longer hang times which should translate into some excellent wines from the 2012 crush.

All in all things worked out well though and we have started removing the 4Ha (10 acre) block 18 of Cab Sauv at Vrede en Lust, as we optimize production for the winery. That will reduce the Cab crop by about 32 tons going forward. It is really upsetting, as this 1999 block should have been in peak production now, but the quality was never there, probably caused by poor planting material during the planting bubble of the late 90′s.

We will let the block rest for about 4 years before replanting. Still need to decide what we will replant with, but we have time on our side for that key decision.

Reds still make up 71% of our crush, but that % will go down as production at our Elgin vineyards ramp up over the next few years. By 2013 we expect to take in the maiden Riesling and Pinot Noir harvests at Casey’s Ridge in Elgin and by 2016 all of our Elgin vineyards will be in full production.

Overall, we harvest quite a range of grape cultivars as the graph below shows. 14 different cultivars at present, going up to 16 with the Riesling and Pinot Noir next year. That is a big selection of grapes but it gives our winemakers choices and options. Some cultivars (such as Petit Verdot and Grenache) are used only as blending components. Other cultivars are produced for a very specific purpose, such as being the main blend component in Jess for our Pinotage.

The graph above shows the cultivars harvested by Wine of Origin, with the grapes from our two Simonsberg-Paarl (SP) vineyards shown in red and the grapes from our Elgin vineyards shown in green.

The Merlot production is split between the Boet Erasmus and the Red Lady; the small Malbec harvest this year will be split between the Boet Erasmus and the Mocholate Malbec and the Shiraz is split between the Syrah and a portion that is harvested earlier for our Jess Rose. The Cab Sauv goes to the Boet Erasmus with the excess sold of as bulk wine.

From the 701 tons crushed, we will end up with approximately 420,000 liters of wine. We will bottle about 270,000 liters (30,000 9L cases) under the Vrede en Lust label. The remaining 150,000 liters will be sold as bulk wine to other wineries.

Susan and Ans will have a few key decisions to make this year:

• Blend the Syrah’s from Elgin and Simonsberg-Paarl or keep them separate ? Hard call as the Elgin Syrah is so beautiful in its own right.
• Blend the two Viogniers or bottle them apart? Maybe an easier call as the Elgin Viognier has improved hugely in 2011.
• Keep Sarah as an unwooded Chardonnay or add some Chenin and dash of Viognier to make it more interesting and unique?
• Keep some of the registered single vineyard Elgin Chenin for a high end, cool climate chenin bottling?
• What will we do with the Elgin Bordeaux reds – Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Merlot? Small blend for the Artisan Range or cultivar bottlings for same, or blending into the larger Boet Erasmus blend ?