The 300 year old farm Bloemendal, set in the heart of the fertile Durbanville region, originally supplied fresh produce to the Dutch East India Company ships on their way to the Spice Islands. In more recent times the area has become renowned for its grapes of exceptional quality and concentration.

Bloemendal's first cellar was completed in 1920 by the grandfather of previous owner and vintner, Jackie Coetzee. His father continued the Estate's concentration on winemaking by the planting of significant amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz in the early 1960's. Building on the family's winemaking tradition, Bloemendal was registered as an Estate in 1987. Concentrating on the noble cultivars, he sacrificed quantity in favour of quality, soon gaining a reputation locally and internationally for his award-winning, 'boutique' style wines, widely known as the 'the waterlily label'.

Although blessed with an abundance of sunshine in summer, Durbanville remains one of the coolest wine-growing regions in South Africa, with a miro-climate ideally suited to the noble cultivars. The cooling effect of the surrounding hills, combined with coastal mists and heavy localised dews result in grapes with fine individual characteristics and great concentration. By contrast, chilly winters, lashed by rains chilled by the South Easter, provide deep rest for the vines in preparation for the following season.

     

Being part of 'Die Kloof', Bloemendal boasts a diverse range of vineyards, each with its own soil and slope aspects. These range from the south facing slopes of the Kanonkop to the north facing Tygerberg Hills.

This allows for optimum matching of cultivar to terroir, a very important advantage to an Estate with only 150 hectares out of a total of 239 under the vine.

Most of the deep red soils on Bloemendal are heavy Hutton-type clay with the rest being made up of Tukulu, Oakleaf and Westleigh. They are deep, cool and well-drained, but with good water retention, which allows the vineyards to be cultivated with minimal irrigation and interference, allowing nature to take its course. This, in turn reflects the terroir in the grapes carrying through to the cellar.

All Bloemendal wines are grown, made and bottled on the Estate. These wines are the result of a combination of modern cellar technology, atmospheric controlled barrel maturation cellars, limited quantity-high quality grapes and of course, the personal touch. Through controlled crop yield and vine growth to maturation that balances fruit and wood, Jackie has created a limited range of wines that have won both national and international recognition.

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