Restless River

Restless River is a small, family-run estate in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley near Hermanus, on South Africa's Cape South Coast. In 2004, Craig and Anne Wessels — Craig a self-taught winemaker who previously ran an animation and design studio, Anne a former international model — bought a run-down farm just 5km from the Atlantic Ocean, intending only to raise their family away from Cape Town. The property happened to hold the region's oldest Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon vines, planted in the late 1990s on granite-and-shale slopes over clay. Craig began making wine from that fruit almost by accident, and the label was formally launched with its first commercial release in 2012; son Luke now manages the vineyards while Anne runs the business. Farming is sustainable and largely hands-off, and in the cellar Craig favours minimal intervention: wild-yeast fermentation, little to no new oak, and — for the Chardonnay — an unusually early harvest and a refusal to put the wine through full malolactic fermentation, in pursuit of freshness, natural acidity and long-term ageability rather than the riper, broader style common in the valley. The flagship 'Ava Marie' Chardonnay, sourced from the estate's oldest block, is widely regarded as one of South Africa's benchmark single-vineyard Chardonnays, while the 'Main Road & Dignity' Cabernet Sauvignon and 'Le Luc' Pinot Noir have earned similar acclaim; the range also includes the 'Klein Hemel' bottlings and an experimental 'Wanderlust' series. Restless River was rated a First Growth in the Tim Atkin MW South Africa Report in 2017 and is imported into Japan in very limited volumes.