McFarlane Wines

Alexandra McFarlane had every reason to stay overseas. After completing her BSc in Viticulture and Oenology at the University of Stellenbosch in 2010, she worked harvests at some of the world's most respected cellars: Voyager Estate in Margaret River, Kalleske and Henschke in the Barossa Valley, Dalle Valle, Dancing Hares, and Favia in Napa Valley. The CV was stacking up for a career anywhere in the wine world. But McFarlane came home to the Cape with a clear-eyed conviction: South Africa's heritage grape varieties — Chenin Blanc, Pinotage, Cinsault, and Semillon — deserved to be made as serious, fine wines.

The first McFarlane vintage arrived in 2019. Monday's Child, a Chenin Blanc sourced from the Bottelary Hills and Polkadraai Hills wards of Stellenbosch, announced the brand with quiet confidence. The name set the pattern for what followed: each wine in the range takes its name from the old English nursery rhyme 'Monday's Child.' Tuesday's Child, a Cinsault, arrived in 2021. Saturday's Child, a Pinotage from organically farmed bush vines on a shale-strewn slope in Durbanville, joined the portfolio next.

Alongside the 'Child' series, McFarlane produces the Capitoline Wolf range — a nod to the Roman bronze statue and a signal that these wines, while more accessible, carry their own sense of heritage. The Capitoline Wolf Red blends Cinsault with Grenache, while the Capitoline Wolf White marries Semillon and Chenin Blanc. A Capitoline Wolf Rose completes the lineup.

McFarlane operates from The Simondium Guild on the Klapmuts-Simondium Road, where visitors can taste wines among the barrels in the working cellar. There is no grand Cape Dutch manor, no sprawling estate — just a focused winemaker and her barrels, making the case that South Africa's so-called workhorse grapes can produce wines of real distinction. The grapes are sourced primarily from the Boland region and its surrounding wards, selected for old vines, low yields, and expressive terroir.

McFarlane's winemaking is deliberately restrained. Whole-bunch pressing, natural fermentation, and judicious oak use allow the fruit to remain the central voice in each wine. The results have found an audience both locally and internationally, with the wines exported to the UK and available through select retailers across South Africa. For a brand that released its first wine only a few years ago, McFarlane has built a reputation with uncommon speed — built not on marketing, but on the quiet quality of what is in the glass.