Leeu Passant Chardonnay

Wine Story

Andrea and I settled in the Swartland as we knew this magic region had the potential to make truly world class wines from the special sites and Old Vines planted there.

The Swartland is a wild and beautiful place - the landscape is a series of rolling hills with a few significant outcrops of rock that form the Paardeberg and Kasteelberg mountains. With its ancient soils and dry climate, it is not an easy place to establish vines, and is a region that has as much of an influence on the vineyards and people who farm there as the people have on the land itself. We believe the primal Swartland landscape bares the souls of grape vines, and in those varieties that can take the ruggedness and intensity of the place, the true personality of a vineyard is revealed.

We do our best to bottle wines that honestly reflect the special sites that our vineyards are planted in, and to do this we follow reasoned farming and winemaking approaches. We only use composts we make ourselves from our herd of Nguni Cattle, we plant cover crops and use mulches to build the health and life of the soils our vines are planted in. We follow this philosophy into the winery where we only make use of the wild yeasts that come into the winery on the grapes and avoid the addition of acids, enzymes and other winemaking techniques that can mask the character of the vineyards.

We truly Love our wines and are so happy to have found a focused, down to earth partner like Frank who appreciates and promotes small, real, family run wineries. We are proud to have Matthys Wines as our importer in Belgium!