Introducing Jacobsdal Wine Estate

Jacobsdal is the home of genuine handmade wines, where every bottle reflects old world values, craftsmanship and care. One of the many things you can rely on from Jacobsdal is consistent quality in every bottle. Consistency achieved through methods tested and true. This family farm has been making wines in the same way for generations and the winemaker, Cornelis Dumas is an artisan in his own right. He always pays close attention to detail, ensuring that only the finest vintages carry the Jacobsdal name.

Situated between Stellenbosch and Kuils River, the Jacobsdal vineyards are planted on the slopes of the hills overlooking False Bay, less than 10 km away. The soil of the 85 ha planted to bush vines has a gravelly, sandy loam structure with yellow clay as its base.
 

A broadly organic approach is followed in growing the vines, and kraal-manure from the mixed farming with sheep and cattle on Jacobsdal is used extensively as fertiliser in the vineyards.

Good drainage and water-retention make it possible to produce quality grapes –small berries with an intense concentration of flavour – under dryland conditions. None of the vines are irrigated. The vineyard rows lie in line with the direction of the prevailing summer wind, the south-easter, which not only cools down the vineyards but also keeps the vines healthy reducing crop-spraying to the minimum.
 

At Jacobsdal wine farming is a creative act, and dedication to soil and vine a way of life. Grown as bush vines, the crop is limited by extensive pruning, making it possible to produce quality grapes under absolute dry-land conditions, and the wines are made with minimal intervention, using traditional French natural fermentation techniques.

Winemaking

At Jacobsdal, wines are genuinely hand-made. Little has changed in the Jacobsdal cellar since it was built in 1920, from the ornate gable with crudely cut holes for ventilation, to the open cement fermentation tanks beneath and the hand-made instrument for ‘punching the cap’.
 

No commercial yeast has ever been used in the cellar and fermentation is allowed to develop spontaneously from the natural yeast cells on the grape skins. Researchers believe a unique yeast strain has developed in the vineyards and in the cellar which imparts a broad spectrum of desirable characteristics to the must.

During fermentation, the cap of skins is punched through regularly into the juice using long wooden poles with crossbars to extract optimal colour, flavour and tannins.

The wine is then matured in small casks of French oak for 18 months, and allowed to settle in the bottle before being released.

Winemaker

When the 21-year-old Cornelis Dumas had to abandon his oenological studies at Stellenbosch University when his father passed away in 1966 and took over the management of the family farm, he had no idea just how many challenges lay ahead.
 

Although he followed very closely in his father’s winemaking footsteps, he soon had to face dramatic changes in market conditions. His father and grandfather predominantly made red and white Port to be exported to the U.K. Only a small percentage of the crop was sold as dry red table wine. Soon exports were brought to a virtual standstill due to economic sanctions applied by importers.

His only option was to produce table wine for the local market. Cornelis started to replace the existing Chenin Blanc vineyards with Sauvignon Blanc and the Cinsaut vineyards with Pinotage.
 

The decision to plant Pinotage was taken because he liked the fruity wines it produced and had faith in its future. Pinotage is closely related to Cinsaut which did very well on Jacobsdal. The variety ripens early and is well suited to dryland conditions. In the cellar, however, he remained a traditionalist – hand-crafting his wines for subtle but deeper flavours where tannins are less evident, something that has become a distinctive mark of Jacobsdal Pinotage.

When sanctions were lifted in 1994, Jacobsdal Pinotage 1989 was one of the first South African wines to be selected by the Norwegian-controlled Wine Monopoly for export to Norway. It was also one of the South African wines selected to be served at the ceremony in Oslo when Mandela and De Klerk received the Nobel Peace prize.
 

In 1997 the Jacobsdal Pinotage 1994 was awarded a gold medal at Vinexpo, Bordeaux and was also selected as one of the Absa Bank’s Top Ten Pinotages and received a Gold medal at the annual Veritas Awards. In 2007 the Jacobsdal Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 won one of just ten Grand Gold medals awarded at Sélections Mondiales des Vins, the largest International wine competition in North America.
 

Cornelis proved that even today natural fermentation and traditional winemaking methods can still produce spectacular wines.