Zandvliet Wine Estate straddles the Cogmans River, with the great Langeberg Mountains throwing a giant arm around it from the north and disappearing to the south-east. A small range of low limestone hills lie on Zandvliet’s southern half, bringing the special magic to its kalkveld (calcareous earth) terroir. Only 130 kilometres due south is the southernmost point of Africa, Cape Agulhas, dynamo of the breezes that cool our hills in summer.
Zandvliet was proclaimed as a 5000-hectare farm in 1838, along with the rest of the Robertson district at that time, being granted to a Van Zyl and a Balthazar Kloppers. Jacobus Stephanus de Wet bought the property in 1867. Upon his death, the farm was subdivided into Zandvliet, Prospect and Excelsior, with Paul de Wet buying the family farm from his eldest brother. Today, almost 180 years later, ANB Investments (also known for the well-loved ClemenGold mandarin brand) is the proud custodian of this magnificent heritage. Although always a wine farm, Zandvliet was also famous for its racehorse-breeding stud and produced the famed racehorse Pocket Power – according to those in the know: ‘a horse that has changed the face of South African horse racing history’.
Zandvliet is clearly benefiting from its turnaround strategy under leadership of winemaker Jacques Cilliers following the ANB Investments group’s acquisition of the estate early in 2015. While some of the low producing vineyards have had to make place for citrus plantings, exciting new wine cultivars are being established to augment the farm’s strong Shiraz heritage.
