Green Wine Route – Every plant has its place on the planet, but what counts is how well they share. In the Cape Winelands, vines and fynbos are a living example…, writes Nancy Richards in Country Life
Call me a heathen, but I’ve always chosen wine by the label – it usually tells you something, although maybe not much more than the quality of the brief and skill of the designer. Ultimately I guess you get what you pay for – though if you live in South Africa how are you not blasé about the availability of good, affordable wines?
But then a little map came across my desk – the Green Wine Route.
A bit of a greenie, if no oenophile, am I, and it immediately got my attention – and I narrowed down the field. Listed on the route are 34 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Conservation Champions in the Cape Winelands, whose estates are not just sustainable, Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) compliant, but who have significantly upped their biodiversity-conservation game.
So here was a mind-shift opportunity – better to buy a wine for its enviro creds than its label appeal. But it seems there’s been a mind shift among wineries too. Since the WWF Biodiversity and Wine Initiative was founded in 2004, suggesting to the wine industry that it takes a long hard look at how business was impacting the sensitive Cape Floral Kingdom in which most of it sits, there’s been a marked move towards clearing alien vegetation, and committing to land conservation.
There have also been incremental steps towards better energy and water management and more sustainable farming but, in some cases, the biodiversity concept has been taken to new levels. Bonus spin-offs are that blocked-up rivers have started to flow, water quality has improved, birds have returned, Cape mountain leopards, caracal and honey badgers have been caught on camera traps, chemical bills are reduced and people working on the farms are in a healthier, happier environment. And a visitor bonus is the growing number of walking, hiking, cycling and birdwatching trails.
Lest you think it sounds easy, it’s no quick or cheap job to green a winery. It’s taken some estates up to five years to clear the alien vegetation – an ongoing process. Necessarily, there’s an economic impact and factor in fickle climate change and drought and, for me, it adds up to a rocketed appreciation of land-respectful wine.
So notwithstanding the carbon footprint, we took to the route to check out some of the champs and their uniquely green selling points.
Nancy Richards visited 4 of the 35 Champion Wine Estates listed on the Nedbank Green Wine Route.
1. Vondeling Wines – Flowering Vondeling
2. Waterkloof – Biodynamic Waterkloof
3. Backsberg Estate Cellar – Back to Bark
4. Bartinney Private Cellars – Fynbos Family Bartinney
We will be posting these over the next few days, but if you want to access the info, which includes useful visitor tips, you can visit Country Life.
Words: Nancy Richards
Pictures: John-Clive
