Damascene Winery
"Wines that are as precise as a sharp blade."
Davis Curl
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Damascene Vineyards was only founded in 2019, but is already one of the spearheads of viticulture in the Cape.
There is a simple reason for this: the entrepreneur Davis Curl, who founded the winery, was able to win over none other than Jean Smit. Smit is a true luminary. Before he was responsible for the wines of Rustenberg and later Boekenhoutskloof for a decade, he worked in Napa and on the Rhône, including with Stèphane Ogier. As a specialist for old vines, he has dedicated himself to the Old Vine Project, which is now very popular in South Africa. It looks after very old vineyards and their owners, who for a long time did not get enough money for the low-yielding grapes from these vineyards and had to grub up these treasures at some point. Those days are over, thanks in part to Jean Smits. He travels 40,000 kilometres every year to cultivate the widely ramified plots with old vines or to discover new ones.
It all begins and ends at the winery in Elgin, where the estate has Pinot Noir. From there, the journey continues to 40 plots, some of which are located in Stellenbosch, others in Franschhoek, the Swartland, the Cederberg and the Ceres Plateau. The grapes for Old Vine Sémillon and Old Vine Chenin Blanc, Syrah and Cabernet Franc come from there. The cellar is state of the art. Nothing is pumped over, everything ferments spontaneously. Only a small proportion of the wine is matured in the best French barriques. Stockinger barrels with a volume of 1,000 and 2,000 litres are mainly used. This results in absolutely precise top wines from the Cape.
photos: Damascene