One of the great pleasures of making wine is getting to meet all of the interesting characters who work in the wine industry. This shoot is part of a series of posts we are busy putting together on the people in the industry that we are working with.

David Brice, Richard Burnett and Roland Peens of the Wine Cellar in Observatory, Cape Town trade in fine wines from all over the world. They work hard in promoting both young, upcoming winemakers, as well as established producers in South Africa, and they carry an extensive range of international wines. I have also spent many happy hours in their underground cellar tasting through amazing selections of wines that they have travelled all over the world to source.

It was a real treat to be taken on a tour of their underground storage cellar, a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of great bottles and precious wine collections. There is a definite scholarly air to the place, resembling more a vintage book shop than a musty old cellar.

A great new event on the Wine Cellar calendar is the ‘Butch and Fin’ show, which showcases Chris and Suzaan Alheit’s magnificent Chenin blancs, and Peter-Allan Finlayson’s sublime Crystallum Chardonnays and Pinot noirs. The event was hosted at Devils Peak Brewery’s Tap Room, a stylish and atmostpheric venue for the 80 or so who attended. It is still early days for both producers, but it is easy to see that these wines are destined to become classic wines of the Cape. Needless to say that my time sharing a cellar with these two set the bar very high in terms of what needed to be achieved in my own winemaking, and their commitment to great wines was evident in the line-up.