Alheit Vineyards

Alheit Vineyards is a family business founded in 2010 by Chris and Suzaan Alheit, a husband and wife team who started their own ambitious wine project in the Paardeberg area of South Africa. Chris and Suzaan's goal is to give vent to the Cape wine identity and tradition by valorising old vineyards scattered around the area, bush-trained and cultivated without irrigation. The couple met and fell in love during their studies at the University of Stellenbosch and after a series of trips in which the couple developed experience in wine growing, they finally decided to embark on their own path.

In addition to owning their own vineyards in the Paardeberg area of Swartland, Chris and Suzaan Alheit of Alheit Vineyards collaborate with trusted winegrowers in the management of vineyards from which they obtain part of the grapes for their own labels. In general, these are cultivated with great care, using techniques such as mulching, grassing and fertilisation. The areas where the winegrowers with whom Mr and Mrs Alheit work include Olifants River, Stellenbosch, Tygerberg, Franschhoek and Overberg. Suzaan and Chris then work with different grape varieties, such as Chenin Blanc, Sémillon, Chardonnay, Roussanne, Verdelho and Muscat Blanc a Petit Grain, varieties that grow on very different soils and at very different altitudes. Harvesting is carried out entirely by hand in crates while the oenological approach aims to express the purest essence of the terroir, which is why the use of selected yeasts, enzymes, acidification, new wood, clarification and any other invasive practices and manipulations that might interfere with the authenticity of the wine are banned in the cellar. In particular, the grapes are gently pressed whole cluster and, without additions, the must undergoes spontaneous alcoholic fermentation in cement eggs, terracotta wineskins or old wooden barrels of various sizes. Maturation lasts for at least 12 months and takes place on the fine lees in the same types of wine containers.

White wine is at the heart of Alheit Vineyards' production, with labels that are an expression of the different terroirs from which the grapes Chris and Suzaan vinify. In general, these wines manage to beautifully combine richness and freshness, elements that derive partly from the advanced age of the vines and partly from the peculiar pedoclimatic characteristics of the vineyards.