Over at Flagstone Wines, our thoughts are still with the people of the Breede River Valley where they are still determining the actual cost of the damage to infrastructure, land, and vineyards. There is still many months and in some places years ahead to try and recover to the same level as before the flood. The sad reality is that in some areas the fertile topsoil has been washed away and the workable form land lost forever.
Writing the above one cannot help in thinking, what strange weather we have. As I'm writing this newsletter today (Friday 19 June 2026), we have an abnormal warm winter's day, and the weekend is actually looking even warmer with the Swartland region going up to 25C max. The clever weather people say that there is a real potential for a Super El Nino this winter, the strongest in 140 years.
An El Nino is a climatic condition where the temperature of the surface water of the Pacific Ocean is much warmer than usual. The impact for us in the Western Cape is a much drier winter. This sounds strange as we just wrote about the massive floods last month, but that is unfortunately the effect of global warming where we get much stronger weather patterns. This includes massive storms like we experienced in May, or very dry conditions like what is predicted for us for the rest of the winter.
It is therefore essential that each of us work sparingly with our precious resource, which is water. In the cellar, we have installed water savers on each hosepipe and we fix a leak immediately when we see it. The team is also very focused on using the very minimum water that is needed for our work in the cellar, including cleaning.
Currently we are busy blending most of our 2026 white wines to get it ready for bottling end of July. Look out for some fresh 2026 wines coming out in Spring like Flagstone Tributary Chenin Blanc.
Well back to the lab for me for more blending…
Cheers,
Gerhard Swart
Wines on promotion: 25 June - 5 July
Enjoy a 33% Discount on the following Flagstone wines:
- Poetry Chenin Blanc 2025
- Poetry Merlot 2025
- Poetry Cabernet Sauvignon 2024
- Truth Tree Pinotage 2023
- Dark Horse Shiraz 2021
Click HERE to shop now.
Food and wine pop-up events
We’re excited to share the next two upcoming Flagstone Food Pop-Up weekends with Chefs Mark and Mo at the Flagstone Tasting Room. Join us for relaxed afternoons of seasonal food, great wine, and time spent at the cellar as we head into the winter season.
Venue: Flagstone Tasting Room
Dates: 26, 27 June and 4 July 2026
Time: 12h00 – 15h00
Click HERE to see the menus.
Booking is essential. Reserve your table by contacting us via email at flagstone.wines@vinarchy.com or phone 021 850 5891.
We look forward to welcoming you back to the cellar soon.