According to Decanter.com, Vergelegen, voted Best South African Winery for 5 years running by Wine magazine readers, has suffered at least 1 million pounds of damage from bush fires which ravaged the estate’s property in February and March, destroying 11ha of its 150 ha of vines. These included a parcel of virus-free quality clones developed to improve vine material in South Africa.

Winemaker, Andre van Rensburg, called the loss of this vine improvement scheme a “borderline disaster. We have been selected to develop virus-free vines to supply cuttings to the industry and this will set the programme back at least six years. Clones of that quality are not readily available in South Africa.” Van Rensburg also discarded one-quarter of the 2009 red crop as a precaution against smoke taint. Volumes will be reduced by as much as 4,000 cases.