Cape Town wine industry mourns Ross Gower

Sadly, we learned of the passing of Ross Gower, acclaimed, successful and respected South African wine maker.

Ross Gower

Ross decided at a young age to become a winemaker and qualified locally before studying at the Weinsberg Wine School in Germany. He was offered a position at a winery in New Zealand where he became head winemaker. Dougie Jooste bought the historic Constantia estate – Klein Constantia – and sought Ross out to be the winemaker there. Acheiving many awards for his wines, he revived the legendary 18th and 19th century wine Constantia, which was lauded by Napolean, Frederick the Great, Bismark and the kings of France and England. Ross crafted the modern Vin de Constance as closely as possible to the original formula from extremely ripe, unbotrystised Muscat de Frontignac grapes. This is an exquisite dessert wine which Simon van der Stel would have been proud of. More recently Ross and his wife Sally and their three sons moved to a neglected apple farm in the Elgin Valley wine ward where he planted vineyards and built a winery. One of his top wines is a Pinot Noir Brut and Ross has been known to comment:

If I could invite any person to a wine tasting at my winery I would invite Madame Bollinger, because I admire her tenacity and style in creating the Bollinger brand and more importantly – hopefully – she would bring a couple of bottles of her R.D.

Our heartfelt condolences go to all of the family and friends who remain behind.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 at 4:35 pm and is filed under What's New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.