The Drift Farm

Spectacularly perched halfway up the southern-most montain range in South Africa, only a few kilometers from the southern oceans, sits the Jack family’s, The Drift Farm. Driven by a desire to make individual, superb quality wines with exceptional character, The Drift wines are carefully crafted by winemaker Bruce Jack, using only grapes grown on the farm. The terroir here is a winemakers dream, and different to anywhere else on the planet. The soil has been formed over the last 330 million years and is a unique mix of uplifted sandstone, decomposed granite and limestone, kneaded by time into the original African silica, iron-rich clay and shale. All vineyards lie between 390m and 550m above sea level. The weather further differentiates the estate. At altitude, so far south, the cold, seaborne winds scour these slopes and batter the vines, encouraging tiny, mightily concentrated berries. These in turn lead to unique, delicious wines. The Drift specialises in four wines - a single vineyard Rosé, a single vineyard Pinot Noir, a single vineyard Barbera and a blended red wine from various varieties and vineyard sites on the farm. The vineyards planted are in small, irregular shaped plots to suit the various contours of the land, and the land is organically farmed. Each variety has been paired with a specific soil type and parcel. In the winery, these plots are fermented separately then married together to find balance and complexity. The wines crafted here are gloriously rich, refined and complex with savoury and unctuously deep and pure fruit. The exceptional character of the different terroirs is wonderfully captured, they are spicy, mineral and harmoniously balanced. These are some of the finest wines being made in South Africa today.