Family Involvement

The Dreyer Family bought the farm, Remhoogte south east of Hermanus in the Akkedisberg area in 1982. Piet Dreyer was doing commercial fishing at the time. They ran livestock and later planted citrus trees. Piet’s wife and children tended the farm in his absence. During 1999 the Dreyers planted 10 hectares Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz.

Since then a few hectares were added every year, and the 68 hectares on the farm at present, includes plantings of Pinotage, Sangiovese, Viognier, Mourvedre, Petit Verdot and also larger plantings of Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Sauvignon Blanc, making the farm self-sufficient as far as varieties needed for the different blends are concerned.

The farm is 17 kilometres from Stanford in a glen in the Kleinrivier Mountains, where the Klein River flows through. The Kleinrivier Mountains is the southernmost mountain range in Africa and its slopes provide a variety of aspects and soil types. The farm’s proximity to the sea ensures cooling breezes from Walker Bay in the afternoon while the South Easter blowing in from Agulhas on the Indian Ocean reduces the summer heat. The newly demarcated Klein River wine of origin ward is adjacent to the Walker Bay district and is cooler than the traditional wine growing areas of the Cape.

Family involvement

Piet and Elna Dreyer are blessed with three sons and a daughter. Gerhard, the eldest, went into squid fishing after school, and is now shouldering a lot of his father’s responsibilities, leaving Piet free to realise his ambition of becoming a quality wine producer. Josef, the second son, obtained his B Agric degree from Elsenburg at the end of 2006 and he is now Raka’s winemaker. In addition he is responsible for accounting. Younger son Pieter is the viticulturist and farm manager. Jorika, the Dreyer’s only daughter do marketing and sales.The whole family pitch in during harvest when every hand counts.

The Winemaker

Finally a Dreyer as winemaker!
Josef is the Dreyer’s second son. He was keenly interested and whole-heartedly involved in the planning of the cellar, the planting of the grapes and the first five harvests, regularly relieving the night staff over weekends, and commuting daily between the school and farm at harvest time so that he could be in on the action. He studied viticulture and winemaking at Elsenburg College, obtaining his B.Agric degree in 2006. He took charge of winemaking at Raka from the 2007 harvest.

Raka Wines

028 341 0676