Balancing risk to build a table grape brand

“We know how to farm table grapes in the Hex River Valley. Our family has been doing it since 1913!” says Jacques Beukes, as he sits in the boardroom of the packhouse on Modderdrift farm in Brandwacht, on the outskirts of Worcester.

Modderdrift is a relatively new acquisition: Beukes and his brother Eugene bought it in 2016 simply to increase the size of their operation. Very soon, however, they faced a series of unexpected problems, each of which had to be faced and solved.

“We bought the farm and embarked on developing it in a similar way that works for us in the Hex River Valley. But although they’re less than an hour’s drive apart, the two locations are very different, and we had to adapt,” admits Beukes.

As they had the opportunity to establish new vineyards here, they wanted a new cultivar that would give them a competitive edge. After a study trip to the US, where they looked at all the latest cultivars, they decided