Journey’s End: Blazing a Trail in South African Winemaking.

Journey’s End

Blazing a Trail in South African Winemaking

Putting Community & Environment at the Heart of Fine Wine

Originally from Shropshire in the UK, the Gabb family fell in love with Journey’s End wine estate in 1995. The South African wine estate can be found in the Schapenberg Hills, within spitting distance (well, almost!) of False Bay on the Western Coast.

Here the property’s 40 hectares of vineyards are planted on 350-million-year-old decomposed granite soils: some of the finest terroir in South Africa.

Winemaker, Mike Dawson has been with Journey’s End since 2015. Science was always his thing, and when the time came to find a university course that matched his interests, he (with some help from Mum), landed on the Oenology course at the University of Stellenbosch. 18 months after he started, Dawson switched to the agricultural arm of the university, Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute for a more focused and hands-on course, finishing top of the class in cellar technology.

The prize was a wine trip to Argentina and Chile, where he met Journey’s End General Manager, Leon Esterhuizen. The two hit it off, with Esterhuizen so impressed, that he offered Dawson the winemaker job at Journey’s End.

The Journey’s End glove seems to fit Dawson very well. He’s as keen to talk about the estate’s strong sustainability and community ethos, as he is describing the vineyards and his work in the cellar.

Sustainability is a key focus on the estate itself, and today solar panels provide all the energy they need. They’re astute about water management too with four catchment dams and a borehole on site. Dirty water from the cellar is clean in their own water treatment plant.

Journey’s End gained WWF Conservation Champion status in 2021: they have 22 hectares set aside for plantings of indigenous floral, including fynbos and blue sugar bush. In the same year, the property achieved carbon negative status, largely because of their initiatives on the farm.

Journey’s End’s community uplift programmes include ‘beat the bully’ campaigns and financial support to build a school and town hall. Journey’s End Foundation was established in 2020, to tackle hunger and poverty through a network of soup kitchens. The aim was to provide 10,000 meals per week. By September 2021, the Foundation had provided a remarkable 1,000,000 meals: double the target set in 2020.

There is evident price that the new assistant winemaker, Kayline Willscott, comes from the local village originally. A graduate of the Cape Winemakers Guild Protégé programme, she is already starting to make her own wines.

Dawson describes himself as a ‘very compartmentalised’ winemaker. He talks about the various techniques and vessels he uses in the cellar, with up to four or five different combinations per vineyard.

Journey’s End Chardonnay 2023 makes the point. It is 100% Chardonnay, 10% of the fruit fermented in 300 litre new French oak barrels and 70% goes into second and third fill barrels. The remaining 20% of the fruit was put into a selection of terracotta, concrete and ovular shaped vessels.

This ‘playground of winemaking’ works well Dawson, who acknowledges that working in this way on this range, feeds their knowledge and ultimately choices in the increasingly premium wines.

The result is an impressively delicious. Tangy, saline citrus and green tropical fruit light up this wine, and it’s hard not to be charmed but its plump, lightly baking spice and clarified butter finish.

Destination Chardonnay 2023 gives the winemaking team less playground time and it is, in Dawson’s words, the easiest wine to make. The rows of vines, from which the fruit comes, are picked on side at a time, two weeks apart. The side that gets the morning sun yields more mineral, saline fruit, while the afternoon sun side gives grapes with stone fruit and peach characteristics. 30% new oak with the rest in second and third fill, the wine was aged for 12 months.

Impressively elegant with generous orchard stone fruits and preserved lemon. A lovely hint of smoke gives the wine a nice detail at the finish.

Hard to believe that the Chardonnay pair are the warm-up act.

Cue, Ad Infinitum 2022: the maiden vintage of Journey’s End Sauvignon Blanc (87%) / Semillon (13%) blend. Fruit comes from a vineyard, 250 meters above sea level, 4 miles from the ocean. Located in the most south-easterly point of Stellenbosch, the vineyards are planted on decomposed granite soils.

The grapes were co-fermented in 2,000 litre ovum vessels, which Dawson describes as being, “round at the bottom, egg shaped at the top”. He likes them because of the way natural circulation of the yeasts, and that they stay in suspension for a longer period. There is judicious lees stirring, and then the wine stays in the ovum for nine months. A dry ice blanket is used on top of the juice to prevent oxidation and to retain the wines’ delicate aromas.

The wine’s aroma is strikingly lovely: Granny Smith apple, kiwi, pineapple, gooseberry, lime and lemongrass… The palate has a gorgeous saline edge, and the fruit has impressive intensity and vibrancy. I ask Dawson if he thinks the wine has ageing potential, and his hope and belief is that it does. Given this is a new wine in the portfolio and a ‘first’ for the winemaking team, it’s a deeply impressive showing.