Willie and Tania De Waal are the fifth generation of the De Waal Family to own the farm, Schoone Oord, which Willie’s great-great grandfather bought in 1877 with a diamond he discovered at Kimberley in the Northern Cape. He grew up in a vigneron family and continued this tradition on Schoone Oord, where it was passed on to the generations that followed him.
We also decided to make some wine from the grapes we so passionately nurture. We started by making 50 litres of wine in 1993 and each year made a little bit more until we made our first barrique of Pinotage in 1997. The quality was exceptional and we soon finished the whole barrique with the help of our wine loving friends. That was the sign to go it “big” and in 1999 we made 20 barriques of our local variety, Pinotage.
Our cellar was built in 1912 with conglomerate rock which, when decomposed, forms the gravel in many of our vineyard sites. It was originally equipped with concrete fermentation vats and tanks. This was removed and we installed 10 x 2500 litre French oak open top fermentation vats, insulation, and cooling to regulate the ambient temperature in the winery and barrique cellar, and cooling plates to control fermentation temperature.
