Mother block vineyards are just like what they sound – the first vines to be grown in a region that give rise to the rest of the same variety’s vines in that region. At Fairview, we are very fortunate and proud to have the original mother block of Viognier, planted in 1997 by Charles Back.

Charles desire to bring the aromatic white variety to the Cape stemmed from a visit to France’s Rhône region in 1989. During his trip, he tried Viognier for the first time, and explains how he was immediately struck by the unique nature of the wine, with its intriguing balance of fragrance, deep fruit and austere structure.

“I knew at once that the terroir of the Cape would be well-suited to Viognier, and as we tasted the wines I was thinking about the soils and sites that I was fortunate enough to have found come across over the years,” shares Charles.

When he returned to South Africa, Charles carefully started the process of sourcing the vines to bring to South Africa – a lengthy, complicated and often laborious process. It’s not easy bringing a foreign vine to local soils! But being determined, by the early 1990’s, Fairview was harvesting fruit from our Viognier vineyards.

Today, our trellised Viognier vines grow on the slopes of Paarl Mountain, on decomposed granite soils. Despite the beating summer sun, the resilient grape results in full, ripe and healthy grapes, and after maturation in bottle, shows its well-loved subtle perfumed fruit and great mouthfeel with every vintage.

In 2017, we celebrated 10 years of bottling this varietal. Our Fairview winemakers enjoy sculpting this variety into various styles, including as a single variety (try our Fairview Viognier), as well as being the frontrunner in our unique Brut MCC, and a leading component of our celebrated Nurok white blend. It’s even featured in our Goats Do Roam White Blend and Goat Roti!

Viognier is very flexible, working in a wide variety of seafood, roasted or grilled chicken, pork, spicy flavors and Asian cuisine. A Malay curry with delicate spice and dried fruits is particularly delicious when paired with Viognier. This Mother’s Day, our recommendation is to grab yourself a bottle (or two) of our very own mother block wine, Fairview Viognier, and celebrate!

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Charles also began the cheese making factory at Fairview, giving the cheesery the title of first goat’s milk cheesery in South Africa as well as the first carbon neutral factory in SA. “It was actually my father’s idea to get me involved in cheese making before doing the wine every day. My training was a French book, badly translated, on how to make goats cheese. I’ll never forget that there was a chapter on all that could go wrong and my cheeses ticked every box. They were appalling.” He persevered, even though the South African market initially expressed no interest in eating goats cheese, and he finally knew he’d hit on something when a group of visiting Frenchmen raved about his crottin. Since then, Fairview cheeses have grown from a single-room cottage industry to a market leader. It comes as no surprise that this is why the goat has been very prominent in our branding – it’s our mascot.

So much so that if you’ve ever come to our farm, there’s no way you could have missed the now famous Goat Tower, the home of two resident goats. While in Portugal on a family holiday, Back came across a goat tower and was so enamoured with it that he sketched it on the back of a serviette to take back home and build. “My father thought I was mad but at the time I was looking for something to tie our brand together, something iconic.” It’s a playful, whimsical touch, added by Charles 30 years ago. In December 2016, the Goat Tower expanded a little, with the addition of a Goat Paddock and Africa’s first goat skywalk, attracting thousands of visitors over the summer.

Another infamous ‘goat tale’ is that of our wine brand, Goats Do Roam. In 1999, owner Charles took inspiration from our goats to produce a new range of wines, called Goats Do Roam. The result was South Africa’s first so-called ‘critter label’, a separate company from Fairview. The pun on Côtes du Rhône caused such interest and controversy, that the brand became a huge success on export markets, becoming one of the highest selling South African brands worldwide. The controversy came from the force of the protectionist French Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée when they moved to prohibit the registration of the Goats Do Roam wine label. The French attempted to block the registration of the Goats Do Roam label but Back only responded with more humour, organising a ‘protest march’ with his workers to the French Consulate in Cape Town to deliver a magnum of Goats Do Roam. Everyone walked away smiling.

Today, Charles continue to busy himself with his team, focusing on offsetting and reducing the farm’s footprint by adopting a farm to fork philosophy. “We might be a big wine company but we’re still very much a family business with family values,” he concludes.

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