Standing in the front garden of the winery, you’ll look out across rolling fields of vineyards of Voor Paardeberg.

Grapes are obtained from the farms Klein Vondeling and Staart van Paardeberg, both in the Voor Paardeberg Ward, and the vines are spread across the varying aspects offered by the Paardeberg Mountain slopes, from the cooler decomposed granite soils of the upper reaches, down to the loamy, sandy soils of the lower sites.

The soil structure on the gradual slopes allow for good drainage for healthy grape growing. A cool breeze from the South, high altitude and early evening shadows allow slow ripening. Special attention is given to quality grape growing by cutting back yields, programmed irrigation, etc.

The old characteristic winery building dating back from the 18th Century was renovated after being used as a farm store for most of the 20th Century. The traces of old cement tanks can still be appreciated as a feature in the winery. This is where the fruits of the harvest are delivered each year, usually from the last week in January to late March.

The production facility handles some 40 ton, of which 70 per cent is red. Grapes are hand–picked at optimum ripeness and cooled down in a cold room before being sorted in the winery. Then destalked and generally only lightly crushed before being moved by mobile press to fermenters, either hi–tech stainless steel tanks, or traditional oak barrels. The fruit is always gently handled: no pumping of juices and all action is by means of gravity feed. The whole winemaking process and philosophy is as natural as possible and minimal interference is required during the total winemaking process. During fermentation the cap of skins is manually punched down to extract colour and tannins that give the wine their character and structure.

From there the wine is put in barrique for maturation. At any given time, Anthony’s barrel maturation cellar holds around 200 small barrels in a selection of French and American Oak. Anthony enjoys working with a mixture of new and second–, third– and fourth–fill oak to produce fruit–driven, approachable wines without compromising on complexity.

The end–point is always to produce a wine of quality that will please the palate and show integrity in expressing the fruit’s origin. It’s all about the wine in the bottle – ripe fruit is at the core of each and every wine, with wooding always done judiciously. Anthony keeps the craft of winemaking simple: Going back in winemaking is the way forward, which translates into a belief in the basic, traditional methods of winemaking, aided by modern equipment and design, including sorting tables, basket presses, wooden fermenters and small tanks for individual vinification of particular cultivars.

The result is a portfolio of wines that falls deftly mid-way between New World fruit richness and showiness, and Old World tannic structure and elegance. What always sparks added interest is that with each new vintage, there is something new: whether it be the expression of the vagaries of the vintage, the bottling of a new variety, or the experimentation with a new way of melding fruit and wood.