The last thing I’d think to do before fleeing my home in France during a vicious round of religious persecution would be to get a few vine cuttings. Yet this is precisely what a Huguenot settler named Bruère did. He was about to take ship for the new Cape Colony in 1688, and as he blew out the last candle, he suddenly thought: “I’d better get some vine clippings. Not sure if there’s wine in Africa.”

He probably had the thought in French, but I’m paraphrasing for effect. The happy fact is that Monsieur Bruére kept the vines alive on the sea voyage to an uncertain future. Three centuries later, South Africa’s robust wine industry owes him, and other French Huguenots like him, a debt of gratitude.

I too owe a debt of thanks, as their descendants make my favourite everyday Sauvignon Blanc. Life from Stone from Springfield was the wine that introduced me to quality Sauvignon Blanc and I return to its fond embrace whenever I see it on a wine list or a store shelf.

The wine is imbued with a flinty minerality which comes from grapes grown on a section of the estate where the soils comprise up to 70% quartz. Of course the quartz has been broken down through millennia of wear into workable soils, whose character is reflected in the fruit.

Wine is made in the vineyard, and the careful treatment of the bunches results in an excellent fruit-forward Cabernet Sauvignon.

Ninth-generation descendants of the Bruére family, the Bruwers have been farming on Springfield since 1898. Today, it is the most beautiful farm in the Robertson Valley with sensitively restored buildings that house a generous tasting room overlooking a large dam that feeds many of their vines. It is a place of tradition and heritage, and the source of some astonishingly good wines.

The cellar was established in 1902, and from the very first bottle, they have made handcrafted wines that are produced as naturally as possible. To this day, the winemaking process is kept direct and uncomplicated, much as it was back at the turn of the last century.

Of course, the family has moved with the times and uses modern equipment where it makes sense and doesn’t impact natural processes. But their wines offer an honest expression of the estate’s terroir. Fancy machines can measure how much water is in the soil, but at the end of the day the farmer needs to look at the vine, see if it is under stress, and act accordingly.

Rest is needed to get the best from the wines after the trauma of the bottling line.

In the cellar too, there is technology to assist, but Springfield wines are made traditionally and according to ancient methods. Most of the wines are fermented using the natural, wild yeasts found on the grape skins, hence the catchy name of another of their wines: ‘Wild Yeast Chardonnay’.

Fermenting with natural yeast is an unpredictable and volatile process that takes months and is impossible to guide or control. It has also led to the loss of a vintage from time to time, but this goes with the territory if you are true to a code.

The ‘code’ of Springfield and the Bruwer family is clear, it is enshrined in the motto; ‘Made on Honour’ that guides their winemaking philosophy. It affects every facet of life on the farm. Every day, thousands of tiny decisions need to be made on the estate, and each one must be the best decision for the wine.

It is not always the easiest path, nor the most comfortable for the accountant, but they are determined to only ever release a vintage that has greatness, and nothing less. The family’s honour ensures that they will.