Fairview’s vine roots go right back to 1926 when Charles Back 1, an immigrant from Luithuana, taught himself to make wine and developed a wine export business based in Paarl. Upon his death he bequeathed a wine farm to each of his sons: Klein Babylonstoren, which is now Backsberg, to Sydney Back, and Fairview to Cyril.

Fairview Shiraz 2008

Charles Back has developed exciting, new viticultural sites across the Western Cape and his wines are renowned for including lesser-known varieties such as Barbera, Tannat, Petit Syrah, Carignan and Grenache.

Fairview lifted a host of prizes at this year’s key international wine awards including gold medals for the Fairview Shiraz 2008 and Spice Route Malabar 2006 at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, as well as gold for the Cyril Back 2007 at the 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards. Fairview also gathered eleven silver medals from the two competitions, together with the recent International Wine Challenge, marking a remarkable success for the family-run business based in Paarl.

Anthony de Jager, winemaker of the Fairview label and Spice Route’s Charl du Plessis together with their teams can be well satisfied with the results of their hard work and maverick approach to brand building.

Charles Back had this to say about the recent accolades:

“We are selective about the small number of competitions we enter, as the opinions we most value are those of our consumers. However being judged as producing great wine by international experts makes me very proud of our wine making teams and their outstanding contribution to the company’s success.”

Happily for readers, of this blog Fairview wines are sold in 40 countries around the world.

Look out for a review soon of La Capra the latest range, on this blog.