Springfield Estate - The Philosophy

inherited by our ancestors". So the estate produces site-specific wines whose terroir makes them special. Bruwer explains his natural approach to winemaking: "To be good natural farmers we need to be observant. We can use all sorts of fancy machines to tell us how much water is in the soil but at the end of the day you need to look at the vine, see if it is under stress, and act accordingly … We'd rather intervene in the vineyard than in the cellar. Site-specific planting of virus-free clones, and pruning that encourages vigorous growth in the new shoots to shade the grapes from the searing sun are some of the methods we employ to draw the best from our grapes. In winemaking, we believe in minimal intervention if the result is to reflect our unique terroir. This implies cellar techniques such as leaving our wines on the lees for up to one year, no sterile filtering and a policy of maturation that integrates fruit and wood for balance and structure."

The winemaking process is kept as direct and uncomplicated as possible so that the natural elements in the wine can speak for themselves; so that the wine can "make itself", so to speak, with the least possible interference. In keeping with this natural approach to winemaking, fining and filtration is kept to a minimum in the cellar, except for the Sauvignons which have to be fined and filtered.

Springfield Estate is a traditional, family-run wine farm, which believes in producing wine as naturally as possible. Viticulturist and winemaker Abrie Bruwer is passionate about wine and his policy of minimal intervention in the cellar has established the estate's reputation as a serious producer of world-class wines.

Springfield's natural approach to winemaking starts with eco-friendly practices in the vineyards. Minimum spraying is applied and a platoon of snail-eating ducks patrols the vineyards. Irrigation is used only to relieve grape stress.

Whenever possible grapes are harvested at night so that the winemaker can work with them at their coolest. This helps maintain the concentration of fruit flavours and enhances their varietal characteristics. The grapes are handled as little as possible and the wine is never pumped if it can be avoided, since this harms the fermentation process. Filtering is kept to an absolute minimum. "Sterile filtering results in much of the unique flavours of our country's best wines ending up on the cellar floor", says winemaker, Abrie Bruwer.

Instead of using commercial yeasts in the fermentation process, the use of natural, wild yeast that adheres to the skins of the grapes when harvested is practised to a large extent. "If the wild yeast works, it is worth it a hundred times over – even if it only happens once in three years", is the winemaker's justification of what many conventional winemakers regard as high-risk winemaking.