The People behind the Winery and our Wines

Jeremy Walker was the founder of the business and is still the “hands on” winemaker. He had great support from his parents – Eddie and Betty – in getting the winery established.

Jeremy Walker was the founder of the business and is still the “hands on” winemaker. He had great support from his parents – Eddie and Betty – in getting the winery established. His wife Mandy has also been actively involved since the start. Jeremy and Mandy moved to Grangehurst a year after the first vintage – the first year was spent commuting from the beautiful coastal suburb of Camps Bay to Stellenbosch. In 1994 they built a home on the property for themselves – now also the home of their two young daughters, Hayley and Tarryn, who were born in 1995 and 1998 respectively (both good vintages!).

Although Grangehurst is a small winery, the labour requirement is relatively large due to traditional, non-mechanised winemaking techniques that are used to produce our wines. Our winemaking philosophy is to follow the most basic techniques. This means that a lot of manual labour is required and we are pleased to be able to provide these employment opportunities. We were thrilled when Gladys Brown, whose mother Janey has worked at Grangehurst since 1976, completed her schooling and decided she would like a career as a winemaker. Gladys joined us at the end of 2002 and has grown tremendously since then in her knowledge and experience of all aspects of winemaking – from crushing of the grapes to the bottling and final packaging of the wines. She has recently attended two short courses in viticulture and winemaking at Elsenburg Agricultural College – and passed both with flying colours. Gladys is assisted in the cellar by Patrick Tsoananyane and Ernest Matabane, whilst Michael Lekhoba – who has lived at Grangehurst longer than anyone lese (since the late 1960’s) – attends to the gardens. During the harvest and bottling operations we employ part-time workers to assist in the cellar.

The office administration and sales team comprises Mandy Walker and Yvette de Gouveia.

Grangehurst Winery
021 855 3625