Southern Right

Southern Right exists because Anthony Hamilton Russell believed South Africa's most maligned grape variety deserved a champion. Founded in 1994, the estate was purpose-built as a Pinotage and Sauvignon Blanc specialist -- just two wines, no more, each made to prove that cool-climate Walker Bay could produce Pinotage of genuine refinement and complexity. The gamble paid off. Southern Right's Pinotage is now widely described as 'a Pinotage for people who don't like Pinotage,' and it has done more than perhaps any other wine to fuel the current Pinotage renaissance in South Africa and internationally.

The property is strikingly beautiful: 448 hectares in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley appellation, purchased in 2005 on the western border of Hamilton Russell Vineyards. It is the first estate you reach as you enter the valley from Hermanus, with vineyards planted just three kilometres from the cool South Atlantic waters of Walker Bay. The wines take their name from the rare Southern Right whales that frequent these waters each winter to calve, and with each bottle sold the estate contributes to conservation in the area. Southern Right sits alongside Hamilton Russell Vineyards and Ashbourne Wines as part of the Hamilton Russell family of properties.

Winemaker Emul Ross works alongside viticulturist Johan Montgomery under the guidance of Anthony Hamilton Russell and his wife Olive. The Pinotage is sourced from iron and clay-rich soils that lend the wine its distinctive mineral backbone and structure. The 2022 vintage delivers smoky minerals on the nose alongside wild blackberry and shades of peat moss, with a palate that is dense and chewy yet full of finesse. The Sauvignon Blanc draws on a mosaic of iron-clay, granitic, and sandstone soils -- forty-six per cent from iron and clay, twenty-eight per cent from granite, twenty-six per cent from sandstone -- to build individuality and palate complexity. Both wines are styled with classical restraint: no pyrotechnics, no over-extraction, just clean, site-expressive fruit with fine structure.

In 2009, a 350-ton cellar was completed on the property in the traditional Overberg style, giving Ross the purpose-built facilities to pursue ever-greater precision. The Sauvignon Blanc remains a local and international best-seller, listed more than five times as one of South Africa's best wine values by Wine Spectator.

Southern Right does not operate a public tasting room in the conventional sense. The focus remains squarely on the wine. For visitors who appreciate a producer with unwavering conviction -- two grapes, one site, no compromise -- Southern Right is essential Walker Bay.