Jun 21, 20202 min read

Lockdown news from Peter Falke Wine Estate

Today are lockdown news comes from Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, from relatively new vineyard to us - Peter Falke Wine Estate.

Wim the Marketing Manager has sent over his report

"Prior to Covid, we were having a good year. Our harvest went well and we were very lucky to have finished it before our lockdown began. We had an excellent harvest and have high expectations for this year’s vintage across all our varietals bases in what is presenting itself to our winemaker and his team.

Fortunately, to date, none of our staff have been affected health wise. Our sales, however have been significant affected as no wine sales were permitted in April & May, and export sales have only been allowed from the beginning of May. The decrease in sales drops straight to our bottom line and has really squeezed our cash flow. But luckily we had some very good online orders that we could start delivering from 1 June!

Helderberg mountains overlooking the winery

To protect our staff we have implemented all the normal health and safety measures – masks, gloves, social distancing, disinfecting etc. We have also limited staff on the farm to those who absolutely need to be there.

At the moment we are allowed to only sell wine from the tasting room from Mondays – Thursdays 9.00 – 17.00. And we have a drive through collection method where customers temperature get tested at the gate, they must wear masks if they enter the estate. They park in front of the tasting room, place their order (which they can phone through) pay (while they can sit in the car) and park in front of the cellar to collect the wine. There is no need to leave their car however if they do get out there is hand sanitizer at the entrance of the tasting room and cellar. This way we adhere to strict protocol and keep with the social distancing rules.

We expect the next harvest will be smaller as sales is down drastically especially on the Sauvignon Blanc and Blanc de Noir wines. The rest of the wines will be down slightly but we are keeping positive and looking ahead with our glasses half full!"