Conceived as a celebration of terroir, artistry and the pursuit of excellence, the initiative positions Graham Beck at the intersection of luxury, culture and innovation.
The first chapter in this ongoing series welcomed celebrated multidisciplinary artist Michael Chandler, whose work is revered for its sensitivity to craft, history and materiality. Following his previous collaboration with the House, Chandler returned to the Robertson estate to create a singular piece: a hand-painted ceramic wine egg, realised over three days in the heart of the vineyards.
Where soil becomes medium, and medium becomes muse
Set against 3 000 hectares of limestone-rich terrain and protected nature reserve, the Artist’s Retreat grants creators full access to the environment that defines Graham Beck’s Cap Classique. The initiative invites a deeper contemplation of terroir – not as a winemaking term, but as a cultural force that shapes taste, aesthetics and expression.
For Chandler, this meant stepping directly into the landscape to gather his own pigments. Using chalky limestone and decomposed granite sourced from the estate’s vineyards, he transformed the raw earth into delicate colour – a process that demands the same precision and patience as the crafting of Cap Classique itself.
Each hue became an authentic chromatic interpretation of Robertson’s geology. Each stroke, an act of translation between land and imagination.
A canvas unlike any other: The ceramic wine egg
Chandler’s chosen canvas, the ceramic wine egg, is itself an object of design and innovation.
Within Graham Beck’s cellar, these eggs serve as fermentation vessels prized for their purity of form and function. Their smooth curvature encourages a natural circulation of wine, while the porous ceramic allows gentle oxygen exchange – both techniques revered for shaping texture with elegance and restraint.
To render art on an object traditionally used to elevate flavour is to fuse two disciplines that value patience, nuance and beauty born from time.
Three days of creation: Artistry in motion
Throughout the residency, Chandler engaged in a meditative dialogue with the vessel. His first day was spent gathering soils from the estate and refining them into pigments, slowly mapping the contours of what the ceramic wine egg would become.
On the second day, he moved his practice outdoors beneath the wide Robertson sky, allowing intuition to overtake intention as twilight settled – a moment in which the retreat shifted from study to something more spiritual.
By the third day, his brushstrokes evolved into layered expressions of botanicals, geological textures and subtle echoes of the Graham Beck Nature Reserve, weaving together imagery that feels at once ancient and unmistakably modern.
The final piece embodies a rare alchemy: earth rendered as colour; colour rendered as story; story rendered as a vessel for contemplation.
A new cultural chapter for Graham Beck
The completed ceramic wine egg now resides within the estate’s Innovation Cellar – a sanctuary devoted to exploration and the future of Cap Classique. Surrounded by experiments in texture, fermentation and terroir, Chandler’s piece becomes both artefact and emblem: a testament to the estate’s philosophy that mastery is an evolving artform.
The Artist’s Retreat will return in 2026, inviting new voices to reinterpret the landscape and continue this conversation between creativity and craft. As with Graham Beck’s Cap Classique, each edition will reflect the precision, patience and pursuit of beauty that defines the House.