Season One · The Cape

Four estates, one drought, four answers.

Recorded in November 2018, at the bottom of the Cape's worst drought. We are going back.

Season One: The Cape. In November 2018, at the lowest point of the Cape's worst drought in living memory, we sat down with four winemakers across Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. One reached for data. One refused to irrigate at all. One leaned on the sea. One trusted old vines that thrive on thirst. Four answers to the same crisis. Eight years on, every one of those winemakers has moved on, one estate has changed hands, one has been touched by fire. We are going back to ask what happened.

One drought, four answers

KleinoodData

Read the soil as a dataset; 40 micro-batches from 23 blocks

ChamonixRefusal

No irrigation for 25 years; read the seed, not the sugar

MeerlustThe sea

Maritime cooling and poor soils that force the vine deep

Kleine ZalzeOld vines

Bush-vine Chenin with roots that thrive on thirst

Four estates, one region, the same drought. Four philosophies, all on the record in 2018.