De Meye Wines

This stunning farm is situated in the Stellenbosch sub region known as Greater Simonsberg, South Africa's most prestigious wine making area. We are on the northern side Stellenbosch , which makes up the Simonsberg/ Muldersvlei ward. Our neighbouring wineries are Kanonkop, Uitkyk, Warwick, Laibach.

De Meye is a family owned and run business. The farm and winery is named after the De Meye River in the Netherlands. This is where the first Myburgh who came to South Africa in 1665, used to live. Our label is designed around the Myburgh Family crest.

The owner is Jan Myburgh, who is the fifth generation to farm in this area. He started farming with vines over 30 years ago. Grapes were sold to Nederburg and Stellenbosch Farmers' Winery. In 1997, it was decided to renovate some of the old farm buildings and make our own wines.

Our winemaker, Marcus Milner and Philip Myburgh, manage the winery. Marcus spent 10 years at a neighbouring estate, Warwick and in 1999, he joined us at DE MEYE.

The total size of the farm is 150 hectares, of which 60 hectares are planted to vineyards and 20 under fruit trees. In total we could have 100 hectares planted to vines. The grape varieties include Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Pinotage and Chardonnay. Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc are also grown on De Meye, but these grapes are sold off to different neighbouring wineries. We have recently been Euregap Certified. Euregap stands for European Good Agricultural Practices, this certification will be a requirement for the European supermarkets that buy our fruit.

Most of our wine is exported at this stage. But we feel it is important to establish ourselves locally. We currently export to the following countries: Germany, Holland, UK, USA, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Botswana, Austria and Switzerland.

The estate is now in the process of changing all exotic to indigenous plants. This decision was furthered by the biodiversity campaign run by Wines of South Africa.

Taking things one step further Philip Myburgh from De Meye, Jan Mouton, Dirk Zwiegelaar and Deon Zwiegelaar put all their energies together in opening a wholesale indigenous nursery called Alfa Variegata on De Meye farm.

The majority of the seedlings, as seen on the pictures, were seeds collected by hand by the team members of Alfa Variegata. This nursery will enable all landscapers to buy indigenous plants for their respective projects and as a result promote truly South African vegetation.

An important project that is in the pipeline is the collection of all cellar waste water from our cellar in a dam, then planting certain indigenous water plants which will act as a bio-filtration system, resulting in water that can be re-utilised for irrigation purposes.