Vergelegen is no ordinary estate. While many farms can claim 300-years of lineage, this sprawling Somerset West estate has the ancient arbour to prove it. Africa’s oldest oak tree presides here, planted in the early 1700s. Its bark is riddled by time, overlapping like bubbly paper mâché, but its spring leaves are green and newborn.
Then there are also the five famed camphor trees, gnarly sentinels outside the homestead, which are also believed to have been planted in 1700.
These historic roots were set down by then owner and Cape Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel who named it Vergelegen, meaning ‘Far Away’. Then it was far. It took three days’ journey by ox wagon to get there from Cape Town.
Its modern day era started in 1987 when the farm was bought by Anglo American Farms, a subsidiary of modern-day Anglo American. Towering trees creak over manicured lawns and gardens. Amidst them is a wine tasting centre, two restaurants, and an interpretive centre showcasing the historical treasures of this place that was once far away.
But this isn’t just a story about Vergelegen’s trees, but rather about a winemaker who also took root here 22 vintages ago. To find him I have to ascend a road running alongside the gradually steepening vineyard blocks, up to the white cellar in the sky, overlooking the dramatic vista of the Hottentots Holland Mountains.
André van Rensburg invites me into his state-of-the-art multiple level, gravity flow cellar.
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