The one about Touching the Rock

Dreams do come true! And we are actual proof of that.

We always loved Hermanus, well, Onrus specifically – it must be the energy on the cliff path or the smell of milkwood and fynbos, for whatever reason, it just resonates with the soul. For this reason, it was the obvious choice for our babymoon in April 2017. Over a glass of wine staring at the sea, I said to Madeleine that technically with me being an independent winemaker, I could work from here. And just like that, the seed to our dream was planted!

Life is all about timing, it took us four years to get here, but here we are! We moved in on the 1st of September 2020. Our dream came true.

The same day, while Madeleine organised the movers in the new house, I took Zaria (now 4 years old) to the beach to get out of the way. We walked and could not believe our luck to be here. I saw a rock alongside the beach and encouraged Zaria to go and touch the rock. Now a year later, it became our tradition!

During this year of ‘touching the rock’, I’m amazed at the ever-changing beach. It reminds me of how nature changes without us even really noticing.

Something that did not change is the source of my Focal Point Wines:
The Cinsault from the foothills of Paarl Rock is the second largest granite rock outcrop in the world – the other one being the Sugarloaf Mountain in Brazil.
And the Chardonnay is from the limestone soils of Vermaaklikheid along the Indian Ocean coastline.
Over time nature changed the granite rock into decomposed granite soils on which the Cinsault grows and similarly with the limestone now becoming soils.

Both the Focal Point Chardonnay 2019 and the Focal Point Cinsault 2019 achieved 91 points on the newly released Tim Atkin MW South Africa Special Report 2021. Furthermore, the Focal Point Cinsault 2019 was recently awarded a Silver award at the 2021 Old Mutual Trophy Show.