“I love making wine from all these different areas. I believe the more different building blocks you have, the more complex wine you will be able to make.”
Early on, Pierre’s passion for nature fuelled a teenage dream of being a nature conservationist. Travelling regularly with his father, a citrus consultant, Pierre soon realised that citrus farming was limited to looking, listening and tasting in the orchard. It was then that Pierre discovered that winemaking ticked all the boxes.
He attended Elsenburg – the youngest student in his class to study cellar technology. Graduating in 1995, he commenced his winemaking career at Niel Joubert Wines in Paarl as chief winemaker. In 1998, he accepted a challenging appointment at Môreson in Franschhoek where he gained most of his winemaking experience and travelled the wine world. Those four years groomed him for his next position as winemaker at Rijk’s, Tulbagh – a position he held from 2002 to 2021 and one that saw him win numerous awards. Pierre’s belief to this day is that his wines have a unique signature – a direct result of never being an assistant winemaker under prescribed winemaking conditions. Pierre has consulted to various wineries in the Tulbagh area.
After 20 years at Rijk’s, Pierre decided that it was time for a new challenge and accepted the position as cellar master at the fairly new Survivor wine brand, which falls under the umbrella of Overhex Wines. Here he can use his decades of winemaking experience to make wines from five different wine producing areas, namely the Swartland, Stellenbosch, Elgin, Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge and Tradouw. His first vintage at Survivor was in 2022.