Vilafonté

Dr Phil Freese and Zelma Long purchased 40 hectares of land at the foot of the Simonsberg mountain in Paarl in 1996, planting their first vines the following the year. The Californian couple (who had both worked for Robert Mondavi) had gone to South Africa to consult for Warwick Estate, then owned by the Ratcliffe family, but while Freese was working on his PhD and ancient soils and the wine they produced, he discovered that South Africa was home to vilafontes – the world’s oldest documented soil type (and the inspiration for the property’s name). Freese and Long decided to see whether this ancient soil (thought to have originated up to 800 million years ago) could produce fine wine – banking on its poor, degraded, nutrient-deficient state.