Hannes Storm makes not one, not two, but three of South Africa’s best pinot noirs. The former winemaker at the legendary Hamilton Russell – the founding estate of the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley on the Cape’s South Coast – Hannes established his eponymous wine brand with the 2012 vintage.
Just as the vines with which he works have come of age, he has too, making ever more compelling pinots (and chardonnays – but we focus exclusively on the pinots here). Hannes has just been awarded ‘Winemaker of the Year’ in Tim Atkin MW’s South Africa 2026 Special Report and this recognition could not be more deserved.
After one of the Hemel-en-Aarde’s coolest years on record in 2023, the 2024 came in just slightly warmer than average and was a lower yielding vintage; the wines have more concentration and depth than the 2023s.
Order by midday Thursday 24th September
As South African writer Malu Lambert points out in her beautiful evocation of the Hemel-en-Aarde, Into the fold, ‘there is no better producer to visit to understand this place, as the Storms make wine across all three appellations.’ Storm is in fact the only producer in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley to produce wines from all three current wards – Vrede from the Valley itself, Ignis from the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, and Ridge from the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge.
While each expresses its very distinctive terroir, with the transparency we dream of in pinot, they all share an understated yet enduring intensity and persistence; along with purity and detail, these are hallmarks of Storm wines.
The 2024 Storm pinots were bottled in March 2025, at the brand-new Storm cellar (the first harvest in which was the 2025), but were not released until over a year in bottle; the philosophy is that the wines are ready on release but will improve with age. I tasted them with Hannes in February, on their last day of the 2026 harvest, and was impressed with another beautiful set of releases.
For me, the best pinot producers of the Hemel-en-Aarde – and Storm is right up there with the very top – have ascended to another level in the last couple of years. With the most recent vintages, as the pinot vineyards start to mature and yield more complex fruit (both the vineyards for Vrede and Ignis were planted in 2008, for example, and the Ridge vineyard was planted in 2009), the quality has stepped up, especially in terms of the texture of the tannins but also the length and resonance of the wines. Hannes and I talked about this when we tasted, and he feels that his 2022 vintage was the watershed for Storm from a texture perspective.
The winemaking is similar across the board, so you really can taste these three different sites knowing that it’s the terroir doing much of the talking. There is around a 20% whole bunch component in fermentation, which is what Hannes feels works well without masking the terroir, and maturation is one year in 25% new French oak.
I’m delighted to present the 2024s today; these are wines which I believe will delight Burgundy lovers. The mixed case featuring two bottles of each wine is an especially fabulous buy if you are either new to Storm or, if like me, you can’t quite stretch to buying one case of each!
Hemel-en-Aarde: into the fold
Local and award-winning wine writer Malu Lambert transports us to this stunning region in an evocative, exclusive article.