2024 Harvest season has begun
Harvest 2024 began at Paul Clüver Family Wines in the week of 5 February, with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir as the first two varieties in the picking bins. Like most of the Cape’s wine regions, our vineyard team began harvesting approximately ten days earlier than the norm, mainly due to the dry and warm conditions experienced since late December, which led to quick, early ripening.
Grapes have, however, ripened to brilliant expressions of varietal character, and as the juice began to ferment, the cellar team’s opinion is that wine quality looks set to be excellent this year. There is a tune-fork precision in the balance between sugar and acidity, and low pH levels will ensure wine health.
Despite some vineyard blocks ripening earlier than usual, specific older vineyards are taking their time, and some of these will be harvested at their expected dates in late February and early March. Still, the harvest team is currently in full force. Grapes are cut in the coolness of morning and then sent to a cool room to chill and bolster freshness overnight. Each berry is hand-sorted the next day to ensure only the finest fruit is accepted for vinification.
This year’s harvest season still has a long way to go, but the palpable excitement in the air is one of anticipation and a feeling of being blessed to work with top-quality grapes and to play a part in creating Paul Clüver Family Wines.
Let us toast to giving and the Cape Wine Auction 2024
3 February was a day filled with giving, supporting a cause and giving back. The Cape Wine Auction, in which Paul Clüver Family Wines plays a profound role in offering a barrel of wine to be auctioned, as well as having Paul Clüver Jnr as chairman of its board of trustees, set a new record this year by raising R9 635 000 for the various winelands children’s charities they support.
Since its inception 10 years ago, the Cape Wine Auction has raised over R130m for several charities providing educational and nutritional needs for children in the Cape’s wine regions.
Paul Clüver Jnr says that he and the other Cape Wine Auction trustees were overwhelmed by the generosity shown by those attending the bidding at an energetic and stylish event held at Muratie Estate in Stellenbosch.
“There were some stunning lots put forward, from an immersive experience of the wines and places of the Constantia Wine Valley to a week’s stay on an island off the coast of Mozambique,” says Clüver. “These lots were all donated and then bid on by people committed to supporting the Cape Wine Auction’s cause of improving the lives of children in the Cape Winelands who are the very future of our regions and our industry. It was an honour to see the auction’s income almost hit the R10m mark, one which will soon be crossed, I am sure.”
Bontebok at De Rust Farm
Driving into De Rust Farm, home of Paul Clüver Family Wines, visitors might find two or more bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus) grazing or looking bemusedly at passersby. These beautiful antelope, with their white masked faces and ebony hides, have been residents since 2005, when Dr Paul Clüver received a few full-grown bonteboks on his birthday. They have quickly adapted to the conditions on De Rust and the Groenlandberg.
Since the first bontebok arrived, their numbers have grown to a degree where they are familiar sights for those working and living on the farm and visitors, further entrenching our true ethos as a sustainable farm where all of nature can find a home.
