Our Story
About Hemel-en-Aarde Wine Region
The Hemel-en-Aarde is home to more than 20 wine producers (and growing) and there are several factors that, in combination, set it apart from other South African wine producing areas. Firstly, the Hemel-en-Aarde is an area of unusual grape varietal focus for South Africa. While there are highly sought-after wines made from a number of different cultivars, plantings are overwhelmingly made up of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Secondly, there are no large volume producers and production is on average small and very high-end. In terms of the number of trophies, classic scores, gold medals and 5 star ratings per case of wine produced, the Hemel-en-Aarde is unmatched. Thirdly, the properties are almost all family owned and operated, by the families that pioneered them from unplanted ground.
“I left with not a shadow of a doubt that this region is ahead of any other local wine area in its ability to harness a true sense of excellence in its wine showing.”
Unusually close proximity to the cooling influence of the South Atlantic Ocean and a more southerly location than the traditional South African winelands, makes the Hemel-en-Aarde one of the coolest, most maritime, wine producing areas in the country.
Rightly has it got its name because so high are the hills which closely embrace the valley all round, that they seem to touch the sky and you cannot see anything but heaven and earth.
A Brief History
Soils
Unlike much of the wine world, the soils of the Hemel-en-Aarde, and indeed South Africa in general, are particularly ancient. 400 million years ago, the underlying bedrock for the soils of the area was formed under the shallow Augulhas sea as part of the Cape Supergroup sediments. On top of Cape Granite (particularly old and non-sedimentary), Malmsbury Shale was formed, topped by Table Mountain Sandstone, which in turn was topped by Bokkeveld Shale. 330 million years ago the Falklands Plateau came crunching back into what is now South Africa, slowly forcing up what are now called the Cape Folded Mountains. This was completed around 290 million years ago and this folding, followed by erosion, formed the mix of Bokkeveld Shale, Table Mountain Sandstone and Decomposed Granite soils which underpin the character of the Hemel-en-Aarde wines. The soils have not been under sea, or indeed ice, for a very long time in comparison to most of the world's major wine growing regions.
Mankind
Again, unlike much of the wine world, the history of hominid occupation of the Hemel-en-Aarde is particularly ancient. Beginning with Homo Erectus from around 2.5 million years ago, whose stone tools litter the area, the Hemel-en-Aarde moved into a period of occasional occupation by small bands of Homo Sapiens hunter gatherers, from approximately 250,000 years ago to as little as 300 years ago with the San (called Bushmen by the first settlers) eventually loosing out to slightly more settled semi-nomadic Khoi herders (called Hottentots by the settlers), who only began to depart the area with the arrival of the first Europeans. At first the land was rented out to Dutch settlers for grazing by the Dutch East India Company in the mid-1700’s. It was finally offered as freehold by the British (who had taken the Cape Colony) in the mid-1800’s. Repeated subdivision, and the tightening of previously easier markets for sheep - mainly wool - and wheat, led to a period of poverty from the turn of the last century, which became even more severe in the 1930’s.
Vineyards
It was into this impoverished agricultural environment that the first modern winegrowing enterprise was introduced with the pioneering and visionary purchase of a Hemel-en-Aarde property by the Hamilton Russell family in 1975. It wasn’t long before it became apparent that Pinot noir and Chardonnay were the most successful grape varietals in this cooler area, producing individual and exciting expressions of the site and soils. The early local and international success of these wines encouraged the development of numerous other properties in the Hemel-en-Aarde. The Hemel-en-Aarde wines are not just getting more numerous, but better and better, as committed landowners and unusually talented winemakers and viticulturists continue to engage with a terroir seemingly ideally suited to these two specific noble varieties. Excitingly, as knowledge and understanding of the minutiae of the three appellations are uncovered, a clutch of other noble grape varieties is vying for consideration and recognition. The future is bright.
