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96 Winery Road
What is good wine without good food?
In partnership with brother Alan, Ken created 96 Winery Road, a top
winelands restaurant that frequently features in the top ten restaurants of
South Africa.
Executive Chef Natasha Harris presents a fresh seasonal menu that changes
almost every day, while winemaker and poet Martin Meinert pairs each item
on the menu with a perfectly complimentary wine on the shelf (the restaurant
offers a spectacular array of wines from all over the world).
It is no surprise that 96 Winery Road is the first in South Africa to have
featured in the Wine Spectator Wine List Awards.
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The Forrester range operates on a three-tiered system.
THE PETIT RANGE is all negotiant fruit, specifically
sourced to suit a fruit-forward profile offering soft,
market-ready, instantly pleasing everyday drinking
wines across three styles.
THE KEN FORRESTER RANGE is the product of
vines cultivated and fruit selected mainly from the
farm itself.
THE ICON RANGE includes stand-alone parcels
from single vineyards where the vines are nurtured
and coaxed to perfection. The team may pass through
the vineyards up to six times during harvest, hand
picking and selecting the bunches individually. After
barrel aging, only the very best individual barrels to
go into bottle, ensuring a unique superlative wine -
justifiably the pinnacle of the Forrester efforts.
The wines of each range have shown consistent
excellence, boasting over 70 prestigious awards (to
date) across all three ranges.
Yet despite the spectacular success and high-profile
nature of the brand, Ken never loses sight of that
which is really important.
It is his vision to improve the situation of his labor
force by growing the business and thereby providing
maximum job opportunities in a market that is
desperate for support.
The land is farmed sustainably, with no herbicides or
pesticides. Tilling is done by hand, a process which
Ken describes as a hugely labor intensive but very
satisfying exercise. Thin bunches and leaves are all
pruned by hand and harvesting is finally done by
hand too.
Ken hopes that the additional employment
necessitated by these hands-on methods will go some
way in improving the quality of life in the community
both on the farm and in surrounding areas.
The Forresters have also restored the old cattle owners’
cottage on the farm, renovating it into an adult basic
education and training facility for farm workers.
‘If every community looked after their own, no-
one would go wanting. This is our proposal, and
consequently each bottle is a victory and represents a
small change – for the better – in someone’s life.’
Ken’s social and environmental efforts have been
acknowledged by Madiba himself, who enlisted the
Forresters to host his 85th birthday celebrations in
Johannesburg in 2003.
Open up a bottle of Ken Forrester wine and celebrate an
astounding South African businessman and citizen.
For more information or to arrange a visit to the farm,
call +27 21 855 2374, e-mail info@kenforresterwines.
com or visit www.kenforresterwines.com