Radford Dale Touchstone Chardonnay, Elgin 2025

Radford Dale have worked with The Wine Society for over 30 years and supply The Society’s pinotage-syrah among other wines, as well as proving a brilliant case study in pioneering sustainable practices, despite challenging circumstances. Vineyard sources range from the farm's own vineyards in the Helderberg area of Stellenbosch (where the ocean provides cooling breezes to the mountainside chenin blanc vines, which are planted granite and clay soils, and are up to 50 years old), as well as cool-climate Elgin for pinot noir, and southern-Rhône-like Swartland soils for old-vine carignan, grenache and mourvèdre.

Environmental Sustainability
Radford Dale have erected raptor perching poles throughout the vineyards to manage pests through natural selection rather than using pesticides; they also fill nets with dog hair around vineyard blocks (mainly the young vines and newly planted sapling blocks with thin, juicy stems and branches) to repel deer who like to chew on the vines. They created a water purification reed system, allowing winery effluent water to be clarified naturally by plants rather than chemicals and machinery.

Social Sustainability
In 2006, they initiated the Land of Hope Educational Trust, a project which generates revenue from the sale of wines of the Land of Hope range, to fully pay all educational costs for the children of their black employees. This has run since the 2007 vintage, from crèche age right through tertiary education.