Set among vines and roses at the foot of the Witzenberg, Rijk’s is a study in simplicity. Yet this cellar’s award-winning wines revolutionised red winemaking in the Tulbagh Valley.
Revolutionising Reds
Rijk’s Private Cellar has been doing the unexpected since its inception in 1996, when Capetonian Neville Dorrington bought a stretch of virgin land along the lower slopes of the Witzenberg range in Tulbagh. Against local wisdom, which held that he should plant fruit, he set his sights on vines and particularly red varieties.
Scientific analysis showed that the soil, composed of well-drained Malmesbury shale, is eminently suitable. Moreover, in conjunction with a carefully monitored drip irrigation system, it could produce wine with more concentrated flavours. Dorrington subsequently established some 10 varieties in small, micro-managed parcels over some 30 hectares.
After the success of the farm’s maiden vintage, led by Rijk’s Pinotage 2000, Dorrington and his young winemaker Piere Wahl continued to produce great reds, notably Shiraz and Rhône-like Shiraz blends. Wahl also combined Shiraz with Bordeaux classics Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
Made in small quantities (a few hundred cases), the premium reds were not always available for tasting but they were worth taking home. Having spent up to two years in new French oak, they were then laid down for two to three years and only released when the winemaker felt they were ready. As a result, they made for pleasingly mature, ready-to-drink wines when purchased.
With each passing vintage, Wahl assessed the development of character and quality in individual blocks and varieties, with a premium white blend as his ultimate goal. He had a soft spot for Chenin Blanc and did do some great things with it in barrel, winning the Diners Club Winemaker of the Year in 2016 and then being inducted into the prestigious Cape Winemakers Guild.
These wines eventually made their way into the Rijk’s 888 Gold Label Collectors range. Pinotage and Chenin Blanc are bottled singly under the Touch, Reserve and Private Cellar labels, while Pinotage also appears as a Rosé and is blended with Shiraz. A Brut Cap Classique is also made.
Laid-back Country Hospitality
The quality of Rijk’s wines is belied by the simplicity of the farm, its cellar and its tasting room. A concrete strip road through the vines leads to a building with clean lines in the modern Cape Dutch style: white walls, green corrugated-iron roof and white sash windows with green trim.
A large gravel courtyard is surrounded by a low whitewashed wall lined with Iceberg rose bushes, and a vine-covered pergola frames the green cellar doors that lead into the large tasting room. Inside, the tiled floor and creamy yellow walls are offset by tables and chairs in blond wood and light steel. A fireplace is put to good use in winter when snow lies on the surrounding peaks.
The many small stainless-steel tanks in the fermentation cellar are visible through a large glass pane behind the tasting counter.
By prior arrangement, the winemaker (newcomer Adriaan Jacobs from vintage 2022, assisted during his maiden harvest by a visiting Italian winemaking intern) will take you around the simple set-up that combines technologically advanced equipment with the use of traditional basket presses and manual practices like red-wine pump-downs to ensure soft wines.
Tastings are conducted by the knowledgeable and always-at-hand, just-call-her ‘Ansja’.
The Rijk’s experience, now managed by Dorrington’s son Tiger, is one of laid-back, informal hospitality in a modern take on the old Cape Dutch white-washed, gabled and thatched farm buildings.
A restaurant offers down-home traditional Cape fare and the hotel comprises semi-detached suites with a long terrace overlooking a garden of succulents, a natural, plant-filtered eco pool, serried ranks of vines and distant mountain peaks. There are also separate vineyard cottages overlooking a farm dam. Beehives are being established with a Rijk’s honey on the cards.
Night Time Harvesting
The valley’s extreme temperatures (summer heat calling for night-time grape picking to ensure optimum wine quality and winter chill bringing snow to the surrounding mountains) add to an overall Cape winelands destination of unusual variety and character.
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