Newton Johnson

The winery's name is the two surnames of the founding couple: Felicity Newton and Dave Johnson. He is a Cape Wine Master and wrote his thesis on Pinot Noir, which fairly well anticipates what the house would end up specialising in.

They arrived in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde valley in 1995, built the cellar first and planted afterwards; the first bottle is from 1997. They did not buy the present farm until 2001, and it was virgin land. Today it is run by their sons Gordon and Bevan, with the winemaking in the hands of Gordon and his wife Nadia.

The valley is among the coolest places in South Africa: it sits close to the coast and is tempered by maritime winds, over a mosaic of granite, quartz and clay soils. The house bottles several single-vineyard Pinot Noirs precisely to show the differences between those granites.