About
Sculpting very special wines from the wonderful gift nature has in store each year. Like an architect designing something special from the ground up, de Trafford sculpts excellent wines from ground up.
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People
Dave, the minimalist yet perfectionist. David is a qualified architect whose passion for wine inspired him to become one of South Africa's renowned winemakers and long term member of the Cape Winemakers Guild, where a winemaker of outstanding wines for a minimum period of 5 years can be invited to become a member. Inspired by his dad to care for the land and sculpting the wine from what nature provides, David designs his exceptional wines from the ground up. He applies excellent attention to detail to produce red wines of great concentration and structure. David is a devoted believer in the artisanal, minimalistic approach to winemaking. Over his career, he has managed to creatively fuse his architectural background with his winemaking process. David, "The thing that really interests me with wine is starting from scratch with the bare earth, and designing a wine from the ground up.” De Trafford is a small family winery established by David and his wife Rita, an artist, who designs the labels for their Chenin Blancs.
Place
The best wines have the best view. Vineyards high up on the steep slopes of Helderberg Mountain at 393 meters high, looking out into the direction of the False Bay of the southern Atlantic Ocean. Vines rooted in decomposed granite, climbing up the mountain trying to reach the vertical granite outcroppings. The complex granitic based soils have an ideal clay content that allows good drainage and sufficient water retention at the same time. De Trafford vineyards produce Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot on some of the highest elevations in Stellenbosch region. Because it is cooler at the higher elevation with a greater diurnal temperature change, the grapes are able to come slowly to full maturity while maintaining high levels of acidity providing structure and vibrancy to the wines with fine, well integrated tannins. Walking to the vineyards, you cross a natural creek that starts from high up in mountains providing water feeding the struggling, thirsty vines as the rain is sparse during the growing season.
Culture
Letting nature speak with as little intervention as possible. The philosophy of de Trafford is to welcome the wonderful gift that nature has in store for them every year, near the top of Helderberg Mountain, and nurture it along in the vineyard from the soil, to the vine to the grape and then let it come to full expression in the wine in the barrel and ultimately the bottle. Grapes are hand picked into small baskets and processed in small batches in a manually operated basket press. David is a long term member and strong supporter of the Cape Winemakers Guild, dedicated to sharing knowledge, innovating and developing new winemakers and viticulturists in South Africa.
