Haute Provence Vineyards

Pinotage has represented Haute Provence Vineyard since September 1995. A rather unique wine grown on this vineyard is Angels’ Tears, an interesting blend of Chenin Blanc and Alexandrie de Muscat. The legend goes as follows: the angels visited the cellar one night to sip from the wines and tasted this particular wine, found it to be so good, they wept tears of joy – Angels’ Tears.

Angels’ Tears was awarded a Silver Medal at the 1997 World Wine Championships in Chicago and was awarded the Best Buy award by Wine & Spirits magazine in August 1997.

The land upon which Haute Provence Vineyards sits was originally granted to the French Huguenot Pierre Joubert in 1694 by Simon Van Der Stel.

This vineyard was owned by the present General Manager, Peter Younghusband, for approximately 10 years. Peter sold the vineyard to Count Riccardo Agusta, a well-known Italian businessman and race car driver. He owned La Provence Vineyards, which is the property next door to Haute Provence. The two properties merged to form a larger wine estate with obvious expansion of their current production of quality wines.

The wine-maker and director is John Goschen, formerly of Fairview and Thelema. Production is some 180 tons, 18,000 cases.

A new cellar was built on this vineyard in 1994. 95% of the grapes grown on this vineyard are white. Chenin blanc is grown in sandy soil, with an underlying clay layer, which is situated on the cool upper Franchhoek slopes and valley floor. The vines are 5 to 10 years old, trellised Perold 5 wire. The Muscat is grown on a very slight south-facing slope with sandy soil. A small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon is grown on this vineyard.