Solms Delta, the wine farm outside Franschhoek, is breathing fresh new air, rising like a “phoenix from the ashes”.
This according to Tommy Hall, new owner of the Solms Delta Wine Company. Originally from Houston, Texas, and a current director of Fortune 500 company Hewlett Packard, he and his family have decided to put roots down in South Africa.
The wine farm, which also boasts the Fyndraai Restaurant and Museum van de Caab, was launched last November, but will only be open to the public from this month.
Another project will be to revitalise the wine-making with the first harvest from a small portion of the Delta farm available this year, with the remainder by 2026.
“Until then, grapes will be sourced from selected vineyards across the Cape,” a press release from the company read.
According to Hall, Solms Delta constitutes two farms, Solms, which is owned by the Solms Delta Wine Company and Deltameer, which is in a trust for the workers by the Department of Land Reform.
“Both farms were leased by the operating company, Solms-Delta Wine Estate,” he explained.
“The latter company was in business rescue and had run out of funds completely and was no longer operating any business activities. For this reason, both the government and [the Solms Delta Wine Company] terminated their leases with that company.”
Solms Delta was started by Mark Solms, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Cape Town, in 2001 as a blueprint for “land restitution and community upliftment” for the workers on the farm.
“While Solms’ goals were laudable, between the cost of land restitution and the economic challenges of the wine industry, his dream of community upliftment and workers holding the title deed to the lands they worked proved a bridge too far,” Hall related.
“By 2018 Solms Delta was in the news for all the wrong reasons, with a land reform deal falling apart and a once-thriving estate left shuttered. The cultural outreach and skills-upliftment programmes Solms had pioneered were shut down.
“Maybe the goals were too high for the time-line they set, but the vision was sound. What Mark Solms intended to do was the right thing. How it turned out was another matter. [The Solms Delta Wine Company] is hoping to change that.
“But this is not about us coming in and buying up the farms that once constituted Solms-Delta. This is a separate company that has many of the same goals as Mark Solms, in terms of community upliftment, skills development and employment opportunities.
“However, we want to make sure that we do it in a manner which is both socially equitable and financially viable over the long term.”
Hall and Solms are also working towards the revival of the annual Oesfees, now renamed to the Solms-Delta Wine Company Oesfees, a harvest celebration of traditional music and Cape country cooking.
- Solms-Delta Wine Estate is situated on Delta Road, just off the R45.
