Grangehurst

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Stellenbosch,  South Africa

Grangehurst Winery is a specialist red wine cellar in Stellenbosch, South Africa, established in 1992 by winemaker Jeremy Walker. They produce four grape varieties - Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage, Merlot & Shiraz (Mourvèdre & Petit Verdot to follow in 2006). Current production is ± 50 to 60 tons of grapes i.e. ± 3,500 cases of wine per annum. The wines produced at Grangehurst are the Nikela (a Cape Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage and Merlot); Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot (a blend of ± 80% Cabernet Sauvignon ± 20% Merlot, two of the important Bordeaux varieties); Pinotage (South Africa’s “own” variety, which we always blend with a splash of Cabernet Sauvignon).
The Nikela has been part of the Grangehurst range since 1997, which was Eddie and Betty Walker’s last vintage. Having lost both his parents within a few months of each other, Jeremy decided to produce a special wine as a tribute to them for all the help – moral and financial – that they had provided over the years. The word “Nikela” is an adaptation of an African word and means “to offer a gift of dedication, respect or tribute to one’s ancestors” . The vintages since 1997 to the current vintage (2000) have all been blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage, and Merlot. Future vintages of Nikela will probably include Shiraz and Mourvèdre, which will replace the Merlot.
Eddie and Betty Walker emigrated from England to Cape Town, South Africa in 1952, moving in 1973 to Stellenbosch purchasing Grangehurst.

Grangehurst was named after Betty’s childhood home “The Grange” in Birmingham, and “Hurst Close” – the name of the street in London where Eddie lived as a child. Coincidentally, “grange” means “a country house with farm buildings” and “hurst” means “hillock or on a hill” – a very apt description of Grangehurst. Grangehurst is situated on the slopes of the Helderberg (“Clear Mountain”) mid-way between Stellenbosch and the False Bay coastline.
The year after moving to Grangehurst, Jeremy enrolled at Stellenbosch University to study Viticulture and Oenology. After graduating in 1977, he worked at Bertrams Wines in Devon Valley, Stellenbosch for two vintages. He then spent a vintage in Germany and France before returning to South Africa to complete an MBA degree at Cape Town University. He only returned to winemaking six years later when he helped establish a new wine cellar, Clos Malverne and after six vintages, Jeremy decided to set up his own winery.
With some prime vineyards in the neighbourhood, Jeremy started sourcing top quality Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage and Merlot grapes to crush, ferment and press in the former squash court at Grangehurst.
The first vintage produced at Grangehurst (1992) was adjudged the Champion Wine at the South African Young Wine Show - a dream start for this small red wine cellar. A production cellar was constructed in 1999 and the business was converted into a company.

Although the cellar was designed for a total capacity of ± 150 tons, the quantity of grapes crushed in recent vintages has been about 55 tons per annum (plus an additional 35 tons for Hidden Valley Wines). Eventually, Grangehurst will crush about 140 tons of grapes per annum and produce about 100,000 bottles of wine under its own label.
Grangehurst is too small to have any significant vineyards of its own. We have therefore invested in another property of ± 13 hectares, of which 6 ha of Cabernet Sauvignon were planted in 2002. Another 5 ha were planted with Pinotage, Shiraz, Mourvèdre, Merlot and Petit Verdot in 2003. Future plans are to acquire an additional two vineyards in different parts of Stellenbosch so that eventually we will be able to select the best 140 tons of grapes from the various properties for crushing at Grangehurst.
To date, all the grapes crushed at Grangehurst have been purchased from prime vineyards in the coastal region of Stellenbosch i.e. the vineyards to the south and west of the town of Stellenbosch. These grapes have come from five main sub-regions of Stellenbosch viz. Helderberg, Firgrove, Devon Valley, Stellenbosch Kloof and Lynedoch.
The vines from which we select our grapes vary from 5 to 36 years. The trellising systems vary from bush vines to 5-wire trellises; and soil conditions also vary – from the sandy, gravely soils of Firgrove and parts of the Helderberg to the fairly rich, yellow/red clay soils of Devon Valley.

These variations in soil, climate and vineyard practises provide grapes with a number of different flavours and characteristics that contribute to the complexity and fascination of our wines. The tasting and blending of the wines from the different vineyards is one of the most interesting aspects of our winemaking process.
We follow the most basic winemaking techniques at Grangehurst. As we only make red wines, we are able to make use of the traditional methods of winemaking such as fermentation in open vats (kuipe), punching of the skins with wooden paddles (pigeage) and pressing the skins in wooden basket presses. After fermentation and pressing, our wines are matured in oak barrels. We have ± 80% French and ± 20% American oak barrels and the wines remain in barrels for between 10 and 26 months, during which time they are clarified by the natural settling and racking method. The only time our wines are filtered (if they are filtered at all) is immediately prior to bottling, which is done on our premises. Our bottling system has evolved over the years and we are now able to bottle very gently without using any pumps – the wine gravity-flows from our upper level bottling tanks through a clarification filter into a 6-head filling machine. The bottles are corked using a semi-automatic corker. The capsuling, labelling and other packaging operations are all done by hand.

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