Meet the new winemakers taking South Africa by storm in little-known Swartland

As she drives along the dirt road to Swerwer Wines — passing whitewashed farmhouses amid rows of grape vines, silvery mist hanging in the foothills of the mountains beyond — Prisca Llagostera talks about the community that makes the Swartland wine region in the Western Cape so special. “Everybody here is best friends, even though they’re competitors,” she says. “It’s something that made me fall in love with the area.” 

The southern edge of the Swartland, an area of wheat fields, olive groves and vineyards, is about an hour north of Cape Town. It makes excellent wines, particularly Chenin Blancs and red Rhône varietals, and it’s far less visited than places such as Stellenbosch, South Africa’s most famous wine region. Stellenbosch has more than 150 wineries and some of its vines were planted in the 1690s; most of the Swartland’s 30-or-so wineries were established in the past two decades. 

Prisca is on a mission to shine a light on the relatively young industry. In 2023, she opened a hotel in the little town of Riebeek Kasteel. Kokos Huis is a renovated farmhouse with six bedrooms and three cottages decked out in a simple style and surrounded by palm trees and fever trees full of weaver birds. One of the perks of staying here is access to the local wine scene. Through her husband, Jurgen Gouws, the maker behind Intellego Wines, Prisca is well connected. The region isn’t like Stellenbosch where long-established wineries are clearly signposted and have fancy tasting rooms — here, knowing an insider helps.

En route to Swerwer Wines, about half an hour from Kokos Huis, Prisca points out turn-offs to other wineries. There’s AA Badenhorst — one of the four wineries that kicked off the Swartland’s wine scene in the early 2000s. And there’s MC Stander’s L’Equinox wines, identifiable by their fun illustrated labels: a llama at the beach for the Low Drama rosé, or an astronaut flicking a ‘rock on’ hand gesture for the light, red Find Your Happy Place. 

Prisca explains that the winemakers round here share cellars, help each other with grape harvests, sell each other’s wines at trade shows — and generally don’t behave like competitors. “I don’t know where else you see that,” she says. “They’ve really got each other’s backs.”

A tour with Prisca — during which guests might visit two to four winemakers depending on their time — is more like visiting friends. Swerwer Wines, owned by Jasper Wickens, is a case in point. At his winemaking cellar — a barn full of tanks and stacked barrels — Jasper grabs some glasses, a bottle of sparkling wine and a packet of springbok droëwors (dried sausage) and leads Prisca and her guests up to a dam with a view of the valley. 

Sipping a glass of bubbles in the sunshine, he talks about the Swartland wine scene — to get a real sense of how tight the community is, he says, visitors should join the regular Thursday pizza nights at AA Badenhorst’s Kalmoesfontein Farm, at which local winemakers and farmers gather. “In the middle of harvest, there are 150 to 200 people there. It’s really pumping,” he enthuses.

A similar experience can be had at the summer ‘5am wine braais’ at one of the Swartland’s farms. Winemakers get together to toast the sunrise, compare notes on each other’s wines and grill some wors (sausages), and then head to work. A bonus if you’re here on your travels is that you get to enjoy all that and then slide back into bed afterwards.

Leaving Jasper, Prisca drives her guests to her husband Jurgen’s Intellego wine cellar, located next to the 200-year-old farmhouse that the couple rent. After introducing his wines and taking samples from some of the barrels, Jurgen cracks open a bottle of Intellego ‘Hey Mila!’ Mourvèdre Pét-Nat — a light red wine with an aroma of plums — and everyone sits on the sun-splashed steps outside. “People overuse the word community,” he says. “But the Swartland,” he promises, “is a real community.”