Capensis

Winemaker Graham Weerts is a Cape Town native who learned his craft in some of the world's finest wine regions. He worked in Pomerol, made his name at Vérité in Sonoma and for years headed Stonestreet in the Alexander Valley. After all those international postings, Weerts wanted one thing above all: to return to his roots and make the finest South African Chardonnay possible, a wine that truly stands for the Western Cape. That ambition is written into the name itself: Capensis is Latin for "of the Cape". Capensis is a joint venture between Barbara Banke of Jackson Family Wines and Antony Beck of Graham Beck Wines. Weerts spent months searching the length of the Western Cape for the finest Chardonnay parcels and found his crown jewel in the Fijnbosch vineyard, at nearly 600 metres in the Banghoek Valley: one of the highest vineyards in Stellenbosch. The mountain above it, Botmaskop, means "boatman's lookout", once the vantage point for ships approaching the bay. Worth knowing: when the Fijnbosch vineyard was purchased, it was largely planted with Cabernet Sauvignon. The vines were uprooted entirely, the land left fallow for three years, and only then replanted with Chardonnay.