Longridge Estate

Since 2011 on the Helderberg slopes

The cellar work begins in the vineyard rows. Jasper Raats, winemaker at Longridge Estate in Somerset West, has shaped the estate’s site-driven wines since 2011, carrying the decisions of the Helderberg slopes into the cellar. His title now reaches beyond the bench-side work: Cellar Master, Managing Director, and shareholder at Longridge Wine Estate, with the oversight that asks a maker to think about soil, people, release, and the glass at once. Before this estate, Raats worked from 2003 at Clos Henri in Marlborough as viticulturist and winemaker, a dual station that kept vineyard and cellar in the same field of vision. At Longridge, that continuity matters. The estate’s language is agricultural before it is decorative: ancient decomposed granite soils, underground aquifers, Atlantic maritime breezes, morning mist, and the Helderberg Mountain’s protection all sit inside the method. Raats has put the philosophy plainly: “Our goal is to produce world-class wines in a natural way, applying the age-old traditions of natural winemaking and respecting our land, by not using any herbicides, pesticides or chemical sprays.”

Concrete eggs, clay amphorae, no added yeast

Longridge works as a biodynamic estate rather than a cellar that buys a philosophy after harvest. The farm uses moon phases for planting and harvesting, and keeps the vineyard ecosystem busy with ducks, Nguni cattle, predator birds, snakes, ladybirds, and owl houses. The estate is roughly 38–50 hectares, about half under vine, with production around 180,000 bottles per year. In the cellar, the restraint is specific: no added yeasts, no enzymes, no filtration. Concrete eggs, clay amphorae, and selected French oak barrels each give a different kind of contact, holding the wine through fermentation and maturation without forcing a single house texture onto every site. Longridge says it strives to mature wines for at least one or two years before release, with many built for longer bottle aging. The portfolio moves across Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinotage, Cinsault, and Cabernet Franc, with still, sparkling, amphora, skin-contact, and dessert expressions all part of the cellar’s range.

A cellar facing False Bay

The place gives the work its own weather. From the tasting room, terrace, and sunset lawn, the vineyard opens toward False Bay, the Stellenbosch Valley, and Table Mountain; the cellar sits inside that view rather than apart from it. Hospitality here stays close to the farm’s vocabulary. Rykaart’s at Longridge serves a set family-style meal shaped by produce from the biodynamic farm, while Manor@Longridge makes the estate a house as well as a winery. The room is relaxed, the conversation level, the pace closer to a late-afternoon pour than a procession. Longridge MCC appears in the estate’s sunset ritual, alongside a garden-herb G&T, but the lasting detail is still agricultural: wine, food, and view all return to the same Helderberg slope.