Delaire Graff Estate

On the crest of the Helshoogte Pass above Stellenbosch and the Banghoek Valley, bought in 2003 by Laurence Graff, chairman of Graff Diamonds International, and reopened under his name in 2009. The seventeen hectares under vine, in Bordeaux reds and Chardonnay, were planted in the 1980s by the wine writer John Platter and his wife Erica, who gave the farm its name. It is the register’s clearest case of a private art collection used as the organising principle of a wine estate.

The house

John and Erica Platter planted the estate in the 1980s and named it Delaire, which the estate says means “from the eyrie”; the vines run up Botmaskop Peak, 914 metres. Laurence Graff first visited in 2003 and bought it that year. The wine was remade before the hotel: the new winery operated for the 2008 vintage, and in 2009 the restaurant opened and the estate reopened under his name. Morné Vrey, of the Cape Winemakers Guild, is winemaker, with viticulturist Kallie Fernhout; the Sauvignon Blanc took a five-star rating in 2009 and the Coastal Cuvée the Old Mutual Trophy in 2010.

David Collins Studio began in 2010 and has worked on every phase, designing the interiors of ten lodges, each with its own art theme, the Wine Lounge and reception. The Owner’s Villa — 660 m², four bedroom suites, a fourteen-metre infinity pool — has its structure by DHK Architects; it and six Superior Lodges were due in December 2018. Over 400 works from Graff’s collection hang across the estate: Vladimir Tretchikoff’s “Chinese Girl” of 1952, which the estate says began his collecting, Nelson Makamo’s “Boy with Glasses” of 2012, charcoals by William Kentridge, and Roy Nachum’s “Deep Water” in raised Braille. Over 1,300 Perspex swallows by André Stead and Lionel Smit hang above Hōseki. Keith Kirsten made the gardens.

What distinguishes it

The vineyard is twenty years older than the owner’s interest in it John and Erica Platter planted the estate in the 1980s and named it. Laurence Graff first visited in 2003 and bought it that year. The seventeen hectares under vine, in Bordeaux reds and Chardonnay, are the one part of the property he did not commission.

The winery was finished before the hotel The new winery began operating for the 2008 vintage, a year before the estate reopened as Delaire Graff. The Sauvignon Blanc took a five-star rating in 2009 across two successive vintages, and the Coastal Cuvée the Old Mutual Trophy for Best on Show in 2010. The lodges and spa came afterwards.

More than four hundred works, and the first one was a Tretchikoff The estate shows over 400 pieces from Graff’s private collection. Vladimir Tretchikoff’s “Chinese Girl” of 1952 hangs at the entrance to the main building; the estate says it was the first artwork to inspire his collecting. Each lodge carries its own art theme rather than a shared scheme.

One studio has done the interiors continuously since 2010 David Collins Studio began on the estate in 2010 and says it has been involved in all phases since, from the Wine Lounge and reception through the ten lodges to the 660 m² Owner’s Villa, whose structure is by DHK Architects. The six Superior Lodges of December 2018 are described as an evolution of the studio’s original vocabulary.

The jeweller’s shop is part of the house, not a concession The first Graff Diamonds salon in Africa opened on the estate in December 2010. Flagship boutiques now sell Graff jewellery and watches alongside the Italian linen brand 100% Capri. No other wine estate in this volume sells high jewellery on the werf.

Signature rooms and dates

Competitive landscape