2024 Newton Johnson Family Vineyards Chardonnay

Product Description

The story of Newton Johnson begins with a passion for Burgundian varietals. Dave Johnson, one of South Africa’s early Cape Wine Masters, had written his master’s thesis on Pinot Noir, and in the mid-1990s he and his wife Felicity (née Newton) set out to make it in the place he believed suited it best: the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, near the coastal town of Hermanus. Pioneering neighbours such as Hamilton Russell had already shown the valley’s promise. The Newton Johnsons built their cellar above them, in the cooler, higher Upper Hemel-en-Aarde, and released their first wines in 1997, initially from bought-in fruit.

Finding grapes of the quality they wanted proved difficult, so the family resolved to grow their own. They acquired a farm of untouched land in the upper valley, a blank canvas on which to plant exactly as they wished. They went to great lengths to source the finest vine material, free from the leafroll virus that had long held back Cape viticulture, and farmed with a deep respect for the land and its biodiversity. A gravity-fed winery followed. From the outset it was a family affair, and today the second generation leads: Bevan oversees the business, while Gordon and his wife Nadia, a sixth-generation winegrower in her own right, make the wines together.

The setting is spectacular. Just a few kilometres from the Atlantic, the vineyards climb slopes of decomposed granite, quartz and clay, cooled by the southerly winds rolling in off the cold ocean and framed by mountains and wild fynbos. This is one of the coolest corners of South Africa’s winelands, and its granite soils are quite different from the shale lower down the valley. They give wines of freshness, linearity and floral perfume. Gordon and Nadia’s approach is to let that place speak, crafting wines of purity and natural expression, free from what they describe as the distortions of modern convention.

The result is a range that has made Newton Johnson one of South Africa’s most admired estates. Its Pinot Noir has earned one of the longest unbroken runs of five-star ratings in the history of the Platter’s Guide. The flagship Family Vineyards Pinot Noir and Chardonnay draw on the finest sites on the farm, while single-vineyard bottlings such as Windansea and Seadragon reveal the subtle differences between its parcels. Elegant, savoury and finely detailed, these are wines that have earned praise from Neal Martin as among the very best Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs the Cape has to offer.