Set in the heart of the mountain-ringed Robertson Valley in the Western Cape of South Africa, Springfield Estate is a family-run wine farm owned by ninth-generation descendants of French Huguenots, who came to South Africa from the Loire in 1688 with bundles of vines under their arms.
The farm has been in the family since 1898 and today, using a combination of sometimes risky winemaking techniques, traditional methods and modern technology, along with a sense of practicality and dogged determination borne from living off the land all their lives, the Bruwer family is able to handcraft wine true to its motto: Made on Honour.
PHILOSOPHY
The Springfield philosophy is to produce wine as naturally as possible. The winemaking process is kept direct and uncomplicated – the wine is left to make itself, as was done centuries ago. This allows for an honest expression of the estate’s terroir – a gift from God, inherited by our ancestors. We believe that a good farmer is an observant one. One can use all sorts of fancy machines to tell us how much water is in the soil, but at the end of the day you need to look at the vine, see if it is under stress, and act accordingly. At Springfield we would rather intervene in the vineyard than in the cellar. Good wine is grown, not made. Springfield wines are made traditionally and according to ancient methods. Most of the wines are fermented using natural wild yeasts found on the grape skins – high-risk winemaking that leads to lost vintages every few years. Our honour is our conscience, and the hundreds of small decisions made every day with this in mind, results in wine that we are proud to call our own.
VINEYARDS
It has often been said that vines deliver best where they have to battle for survival. Hostile, rocky and unforgiving: this is the Springfield terroir. The ground is so impermeable that it takes hard work and strong hands to plant the vines, erect trellising poles and work organic material back into the soil. We are fortunate to have many different types of soil on the estate – some areas are very rocky, consisting of about 70% quartz rock. Others areas are rich in lime, with soil similar to that found in Burgundy and Sancerre. Sandy loam soil can, in turn, be found near the banks of the Breede River. By recognizing these differences in terroir we have been able to make complex, terroir-driven wines from site specific vineyards. In the old days, the vineyards were planted in a north to south direction. Today, whole blocks of vineyards have been re-aligned and vines are planted in an east to west direction to ensure more even ripening, maximize protection against the scorching sun and optimize the effect of a cool south-easterly breeze. In keeping with our philosophy of site-specific planting, each vineyard is planted in a site with the perfect conditions for that specific variety and style we desire.
CELLARS
Springfield’s cellar dates back to 1902, and is geared towards our back-to-basics and minimum manipulation approach to winemaking. The basic philosophy of minimal intervention is followed throughout the wine making process. No pumps, crushers or presses are used in our red wine cellar; instead, grapes are transported using a gravity flow system and fermented whole, to limit any spoilage or damage to the delicate berry. Most of our wine is fermented using natural wild yeast, unpredictable and volatile process that takes months and is impossible to guide or control. The wine is then bottled unfiltered and unrefined wherever possible, as we believe that sterile filtering results in the best part of wine ending on the cellar floor. Dedicated barrel and bottle-ageing cellars allow us the luxury of ageing the wine for 2 years in barrels and 4 years in bottles as long as necessary until it is ready for release.