Red Wines

Fred Cline learned a love for farming from his grandfather Valeriano Jacuzzi at their ranch in Oakley. This area in Contra Costa County was a centre for immigrants who planted some of the original grapevines. After bringing these forgotten vines back to life, Fred and his friend Bobby Cannard developed The Green String method of “beyond sustainable” farming. Students at Green String learn how to respect the earth and respond to the needs of their environment as they raise food that brought health to local populations. So they preserve the past and protect the land for the future. We love them.

Blair and Caroline Guthrie are making honest wines, farmed responsibly. Their baby side project (only 600 cases a year) is filled with so much love – their wines are comforting and lighthearted as a Sunday morning dance party in your bathrobe. Beneath that, they are strongly focused on preserving and encouraging the good in the world – environmentally, ethically and everything in between

Swiss-born couple, Nicky and Gaby, started planting vines in Santa Lucia in the 1970s. Since then, they’ve got the area recognised as a wine region and have been at the forefront of the sustainability movement since before it was really a thing! A pretty pioneering bunch, the Hahn Family!

Blair and Caroline Guthrie are making honest wines, farmed responsibly. Their baby side project (only 600 cases a year) is filled with so much love – their wines are comforting and lighthearted as a Sunday morning dance party in your bathrobe. Beneath that, they are strongly focused on preserving and encouraging the good in the world – environmentally, ethically and everything in between

They say, quite simply, that they are raising hand crafted wines along with their two daughters. But we think John & Tasha Seccombe are doing so much more than that! They’re raising the profile of forgotten grapes, reflecting on the heritage of a complicated wine producing country and thoughtfully capturing a new narrative of what that could become.

The very first winery in the Southern Hemisphere to farm using biodynamic practices, James and Annie Millton have stayed true to their practice since establishing The Millton Vineyard in 1984. Along their journey, they’ve raised a beautiful family. They’ve passed down their know-how to their children who now play key roles in some of Millton’s more avant-garde collections such as the “Crazy By Nature” which is some of our favourite juice!

Minimus started as the experimental arm of Craft Wine Company. It is where the winemaker can bottle her experiments each year. Some bottles were good enough to be produced every year, others are one offs - and numbered according to which experiment number it is.

Blair and Caroline Guthrie are making honest wines, farmed responsibly. Their baby side project (only 600 cases a year) is filled with so much love – their wines are comforting and lighthearted as a Sunday morning dance party in your bathrobe. Beneath that, they are strongly focused on preserving and encouraging the good in the world – environmentally, ethically and everything in between

The brainchild of three, classically trained wine geeks, coming together with one common goal- to produce wine with maximum love and minimal intervention. The trio, Matthew, Glenn and Alex met during their oenology and viticulture studies before deciding to kick off their own brand, Blood Moon in 2014. At their core, they believe in making wines that are expressive of time and place. Their first pressing happened on April 15th 2014, after dark under a blood orange moon. How romantic is that!

The name says it all, really. Stand Alone is the passion project of 2nd generation winemaker, Xander Grier of Stellenbosch’s Villiera. He’s taking the reins and doing his own thing with grapes he loves while holding true to Villiera’s deep commitment to sustainability.

The first generation of three generations of grape growers in sunny McLaren Vale to branch off and start their own wine label. Hither and Yon is the story of two brothers who wanted to see their region grow more varietals that were better suited to their land than what the big wine labels of South Australia were thirsty for.

So much of our approach to wine has been inspired by Pieter Walser and his BLANKbottle wines – where the bottles typically don’t show the varietal to avoid any preconceived ideas about what people think they like and don’t like when it comes to wines. “You can’t judge it by the label; it takes drinking a whole bottle to get to know the wine.” He also designs those labels.

Baby-brother brand to Sokol Blosser, this started as a project to continue releasing wines when a nasty pest called phylloxera wiped out most of their vineyards. Through luck and intention, it has evolved (see what we did there?) into a brand in it’s own right under siblings & co-presidents Alison & Alex Sokol Blosser.

Khayelitsha, located on the fringes of Cape Town, is a sprawling township a hangover from the Group Areas Act of the Apartheid regime.

Lindile Ndzaba, who was born and raised, and still lives in Khayelitsha is looking to transform the narrative of wines in South Africa. In a country where the vast majority of citizens don’t have access to transport to visit wine farms or the money to spend in expensive city restaurants or bars – he realised he needed to bring fine wine culture to his community, and by doing this also start shifting the mind-set of wine for consumption to wine for appreciation. Good wine he believes should be available to all South Africans and not just the privileged. And so, with the help of his long-time friend, Ewan Mackenzie he sourced small-batch wines from across the Cape and launched Khayelitsha’s Finest Wines.

The vision of KFW is to see the townships develop and have their own resources to produce products without outsourcing. Not only does Lindile aim to grow his business internationally, but he also wants to encourage the community to work together to further the mindset of “supporting local brands.” He aims to continually provide jobs and, in essence, fight unemployment in the community of Khayelitsha.

Jacques de Klerk, viticulturist and winemaker at Radford Dale by day, makes tiny batches of Chenin and Pinotage under his own brand, Reverie – started the year his first daughter was born. Reverie is an exploration of old vineyard sites, old winemaking styles and an old school passion for experimenting with the potential of familiar grapes to be something completely different

Sometimes (fondly) described as an ‘off the wall viticultural genius’, Joch Bosworth is all about what goes on in the vineyards. The idea of adding synthetic chemicals to his soils when old-fashioned farming methods would work just didn’t sit well with him - so much so that he’s now considered one of the most important organic winemakers in Australia.

Granddaughter of the world-famous director Francis Ford Coppola, Gia started her career as a photographer before moving into film making. Inspired to design a brand that reflected her creative personality, Gia collaborated with Francis and the winemakers to present a new style of wine — one that’s light and unpretentious. Her photos are the labels for her wines.

“A dope-smoking political anarchist meets an upstanding young goody-goody sportsman at a mutual friends 21st” – 35 years and 3 kids later, they are the family behind Luddite Wines. After a few years abroad, Niels and Penny returned to South Africa and found their plot of land in Bot River. Niels had a definite plan as to how he wanted to make wine and Penny knew that she wanted to farm as “green” as possible. Everything had to be about the wine. No intervention, no shortcuts and staying true to only bottling what, hand on heart was the best.