Darling Cellars

South Africa

Darling Cellars sits on the Cape West Coast, about seventy-five kilometres north of Cape Town, in a landscape that was dairy country long before anyone thought to plant vines. Founded in the mid-nineties as a privately owned cellar, it's run by a cooperative of around twenty shareholders farming roughly 1,300 hectares, a community venture in the truest sense. Nearly all their vineyards are unirrigated, with bush vines doing what they've always done: pushing roots deep into decomposed granite to find their own water. It's dry farming in its purest form, and it gives the wines a concentration and honesty that you simply can't manufacture. Under the direction of red wine specialist Pieter-Niel Rossouw, the cellar has built a quiet reputation for wines that overdeliver at every price point, genuine, terroir-driven, and refreshingly unpretentious.