Graceland Vineyards

Graceland Vineyards is a boutique family winery on the Stellenrust Road near Stellenbosch, where Susan and Paul McNaughton have built a quietly compelling wine operation from the ground up. The vineyard story began in 1998 when the couple planted their first vines against the Helderberg slopes. Susan — who made the journey from fashion model to winemaker — took charge of the vines and the cellar, while Paul handles the farm's administration and finances.

The farm is planted with four hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon, two and a half hectares of Merlot, and three and a half hectares of Shiraz — ten hectares in total, all red varieties. This is a red wine estate by conviction, not compromise. The first vintages saw two single varietals launched: Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In 2002, the Shiraz joined the lineup alongside the flagship blend that would come to define Graceland: The Three Graces.

The Three Graces takes its name and label from Baron Jean Baptiste Regnault's famous painting in the Louvre, depicting the mythological embodiments of Beauty, Joy, and Charm. The wine itself is always Cabernet dominant at forty-eight percent, followed by Merlot at thirty percent and Shiraz at twenty-two percent. The grapes are handpicked and wild-yeast fermented in open cement tanks before moving to barrel for malolactic fermentation. After fourteen months of maturation and careful barrel selection, the wine is blended and returned to select French barrels for another ten months. After a full twenty-four months, the wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered — a practice that speaks to the McNaughtons' confidence in their fruit and their winemaking.

The approach in the vineyard mirrors this commitment to quality over quantity. No insecticides are used, spraying is kept to a minimum, and special attention is paid to pruning, canopy management, and limiting yields to produce concentrated, top-quality grapes from the Stellenbosch terroir.

Visitors can taste the wines and enjoy platters on the farm, and the intimate scale of the operation means that Susan herself often hosts the tasting — explaining each wine with the firsthand knowledge that only a winemaker-owner can provide. The property also offers bed-and-breakfast accommodation with two spacious rooms where breakfast is served daily overlooking the garden and tennis court, making Graceland one of the few Stellenbosch estates where you can sleep among the very vines that produce the wine you tasted that afternoon.

Open Tuesday to Thursday from 10:00 to 17:00, Graceland Vineyards is a destination for wine lovers who value substance over scale. There are no bus tours here, no corporate event spaces, no gift shop selling branded merchandise. What there is, is ten hectares of carefully tended red varieties, a winemaker who handles every step from pruning to bottling, and a flagship blend that has quietly earned its place among Stellenbosch's most respected boutique reds.