With the World Cup kicking off in South Africa on the 11th of June, we have released a limited edition version of our award winning cheese packaging, complete with a ‘moovuzela’. Read more »
On the 7th of June South Africa was added to Google’s network of locations that are included in Street View. Fairview was one of a handful of wineries to receive a little extra mapping.
Street View allows online users of Google Maps and Google Earth to wander the streets of the major cities of the world, with incredibly detailed photographs encompassing 360 degree views of the locations. After our visit from a Prius equipped with roof mounted camera turret, we have been looking forward to seeing how the visuals translate on the site. And we have not been disappointed!
The launch of the South African views is well timed to coincide with the kick off of the World Cup in just three days and I have no doubt that many visitors will be taking a sneak peak at where they will be staying, or giving their friends and family a virtual tour when they return from their time in SA.
When Google was planning their schedule for the required photography they approached a few Cape wine farms and we were fortunate to be included. According to their information release, this is the first comprehensive tour of a winelands region in the world. You can take a virtual trip through our Fairview vineyards along one of our farm roads, and see the view that gave the name to our farm for yourself. Enjoy.
Here’s a quick link to us on Google Maps.
If you are visiting Fairview during the next few months you will see an interesting development at the farm. Over the past month our farm team has been laying out our new organic garden near the wine tasting room. This working garden includes organic vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers, which will all be used on the farm. Diane Back has been carefully planning the garden and there is even a South African flag laid out in various vegetables and flowers! The farm’s peacocks have taken a liking to some of the vegetable leaves (especially the broccoli!) but aside from this everything has been going smoothely.
We have been fortunate to have developed a large base of loyal visitors to the farm throughout the year and this garden will supply the Goatshed restuarant with much of its fresh fruit and vegetables where possible. We hope that you will soon be able to have a meal including your wine and cheese, where everything has come right off the Fairview property! Diane always makes sure that our tasting room is well stocked with fresh flowers and now even more of these will be right off the farm.
Aside from the benefit of organically grown local produce for our restaurant, the garden will also provide additional crops for those living on the farm, and possibly for sale to guests too. We have been running a small garden on a different site on the farm for the past year and the amount of high quality vegetables that we have produced has exceeded the requirements of the restaurant. Our farm manager, Donald Mouton, has been working with a small team of previously unemployed and retired ladies from the community. Their hard work has seen the initial project flourish and has lead to the establishment of this new garden.
“When I was growing up on the Fairview farm, my grandfather and father had many different crops and livestock, in addition to vineyards. Over the years, we have focussed on our vineyards and our goat herd and I am confident that this attention has paid off in the quality of our wines and cheeses. Recently we decided to develop a small organic garden near to our Goat Tower and I am excited at the possibilities that this holds. We are always looking for ways to improve the experience of our guests while trying to remain true to what Fairview represents. This return to farming and the provenence of the soil is a welcome initiative and one that I think our guests will appreciate. The proof, I trust, will be in the eating!” Charles Back
As a cornerstone of our range of wines for more than three decades, we take pride in the quality and style of our standard label Fairview Shiraz. We feel that the wine offers excellent value and our winemaking team works hard to ensure that this benchmark bottling is consistent. The 2008 vintage is just about to be released in the tasting room and we have had very positive feedback from our guests at our recent Facebook group tasting at the farm.
Each year we enter a small number of international wine competitions and our winemaker, Anthony de Jager, strongly suggested that this wine be entered. This was following his assessment of the wines of the 2008 vintage late in 2009. His judgement proved to be accurate, and our Shiraz was awarded a gold medal at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, which was this year held in Sicily.
“The 2008 vintage will be remembered for unseasonable rain and unpredictable weather making the vintage difficult for most producers. Fortunately, most of our vineyards are in drier areas which lessened the impact of the rain and lengthened the ripening season. This proved ideal for flavour development. The selection process, from vineyard to final product, was particularly important with this vintage. Our initial concerns about the vintage have proved to be unnecessary and the wines have surprised us all. I think that this may well be one of our best Shiraz vintages yet.” Anthony de Jager
The 2008 vintage has also seen us move back to cork closures. We have used the aluminium stelvin style closures on this wine for the past few years but have decided to make the switch back. You can read more about this in an earlier post on our blog.
