Known up until recently as ‘Botanica’ the wines now carry the name of the 18th Century British artist, Mary Delany, whose botanical cut-paper collages adorn the label. They should be considered as some of the most striking and originally packaged wines in the industry.
Located in Devon Valley within Stellenbosch, Ginny Povall makes wine whilst simultaneously running a luxury guest lodge and protea farm. Until now, all of the wines produced have come from contract fruit, whilst Ginny waits for her own vines to mature.
American-born and living in New York City for her early adult life, Ginny confesses to not having a ‘posh background in winemaking’. She arrived in the Cape in 2008 with some basic knowledge of winemaking through evening and weekend courses spent at UC Davis and ‘a ton of reading’ over the years. The majority of those courses were in viticulture, with some wine chemistry and analysis thrown in. The 2008 vintage proved to be her first experience working in a commercial cellar and Ginny has been building on that ever since.
The farm gives her the opportunity to experiment first-hand with different viticultural practices in the hope that the results are different to what everyone else is doing. Stating that she had to ‘unlearn’ a lot what was taught at UC Davis, Ginny has adapted herself and learnt instead how things are done differently in the Cape, whilst simultaneously trying to get some of the California practices to integrate on the farm.
So, whilst the wines that are currently available are not from the Stellenbosch farm, the objective remains to find unique external sites, learning and understanding the vineyard block and, in Ginny’s own words, ‘trying not to mess up the wine before it gets into a bottle. Oh, and of course trying to be confident so that everyone believes that the wine is genius…
