Description

Bernhard Bredell used to drive past his family's old vineyards on the way to work every morning and watch them being pulled out of the ground. Seven generations of Bredells had farmed the Lower Helderberg in Stellenbosch for more than 160 years, and when the family lost the farm, the gnarled dry-farmed bush vines his grandfather planted in the sixties and seventies were suddenly worth less than the land under them.

So in 2016 he left a good job and started Scions of Sinai to save them. The name works twice over: a scion is a young shoot grafted onto old rootstock, and it is also a descendant. Sinai Hill is the granite outcrop his family have always farmed, its decomposed soils sandy and high in silica, with far less clay than the rest of Stellenbosch. It is the reason these wines taste the way they do.

Chenin Blanc from vines planted in 1978. Cinsault taken seriously rather than treated as a rosé grape. Syrah at low alcohol with real perfume. Everything made with minimal intervention and bottled unfined and unfiltered, so what you get in the glass is the hill, the vintage and very little else.

Bernhard is hosting the evening himself. This is a rare chance to hear the story from the person living it, and to taste a side of South Africa that most people still have not caught up with.

The details

• Thursday 17th September at Highbury Vintners, 71 Highbury Park, N5 1UA
• Hosted by Bernhard Bredell, founder and winemaker
• Standing tasting, 45 minutes
• Session one: 6.30pm to 7.15pm
• Session two: 7.30pm to 8.15pm
• 15% off Scions of Sinai wines on the night

Places are limited and sessions tend to fill, so book the one that suits you.