Old Vine Project

The Old Vine Project is a South African non-profit dedicated to identifying, preserving, and promoting vineyards 35 years and older. Its central instrument is the Certified Heritage Vineyards seal, which a wine carries on its bottle only if it is made from registered, age-verified old-vine fruit and produced in accordance with the OVP's viticultural and winemaking guidelines. The seal displays the planting date of the source vineyard, allowing the drinker to trace a finished wine back to a specific moment in South African viticultural history. The OVP maintains the Old Vine Register, a publicly accessible database of qualifying vineyards across the country, and works directly with growers, producers, and trade partners to make heritage-vineyard farming economically sustainable.

• Non-profit structure focused on heritage vineyard preservation rather than promotion of any single producer or region
• Certified Heritage Vineyards seal is applied per bottle, with the source vineyard's planting date printed on the seal for full traceability
• ≥35 years is the qualifying age threshold for both the Old Vine Register and seal certification
• Open Old Vine Register provides industry-wide transparency on which heritage blocks exist, where they are, and what is planted
• Mission combines preservation, education, trade development, and producer support rather than a single regulatory function

The OVP story begins around 2002, when viticulturist Rosa Kruger began driving the back roads of the Western Cape cataloguing surviving pre-WWII bush-vine plantings that bulk-wine economics had pushed to the brink. Kruger's fieldwork built up an unprecedented map of where South Africa's heritage vines actually were, much of it in the Swartland, Stellenbosch's older corners, the Citrusdal Mountain, the West Coast, and Piekenierskloof. André Morgenthal, with a background in communications and marketing within the South African wine industry, joined Kruger as the public-facing project manager. With seed funding from the Rupert Foundation, the work was formally constituted in 2016 as the Old Vine Project, a non-profit with a defined certification scheme rather than an informal research initiative. Eben Sadie of Sadie Family Wines and Adi Badenhorst of A.A. Badenhorst Family Wines were among the earliest adopters, lending the project the credibility of two of South Africa's most respected estates from day one.

• Rosa Kruger's old-vine mapping fieldwork began around 2002 and grew into a comprehensive national catalogue over more than a decade
• Formal launch of the OVP as a non-profit came in 2016 with seed funding from the Rupert Foundation
• André Morgenthal serves as project manager and is the OVP's primary public-facing voice in the global wine trade
• Eben Sadie and Adi Badenhorst were among the earliest adopting producers, embedding OVP credibility in the Swartland's leading estates from the outset
• The Old Vine Project formalised a movement that pre-existed it, turning two decades of fieldwork into a certifiable, traceable system

To carry the Certified Heritage Vineyards seal, a wine must be made from a vineyard registered with the OVP, the vineyard must be 35 years or older, the age must be independently verified through South African Wine Industry Information and Systems (SAWIS) records, and the wine must be made in accordance with OVP viticultural and winemaking guidelines. The seal is applied per bottle and printed with the planting date of the source vineyard, giving each labelled wine a verifiable provenance back to a specific vine. This per-bottle traceability is unique globally: while other regions (notably Barossa with its Old Vine Charter) classify vineyards by age, no other scheme places a per-bottle seal showing the actual planting year of the source block. Compliance is audited through the OVP and SAWIS framework rather than self-attested by the producer.

• Vineyards must be 35 years or older to qualify for the OVP register and seal eligibility
• Age verification flows through SAWIS, the same body that underwrites South Africa's Wine of Origin (WO) integrity system
• Per-bottle seal carries the planting date of the source vineyard, providing point-of-purchase traceability
• Wines must be made in line with OVP viticultural and winemaking guidelines, including a focus on minimal intervention and authentic site expression
• The Certified Heritage Vineyards seal is the only per-bottle vineyard-age certification of its kind in the world

Before the OVP, old bush-vine blocks across the Swartland, Stellenbosch, and the broader Western Cape were vulnerable: bulk-wine economics often paid the same price per tonne for low-yielding heritage Chenin Blanc as for high-yielding modern plantings, which made replanting to commodity varieties or uprooting for citrus and potatoes the rational economic choice. By creating a premium market for certified old-vine fruit, the OVP changed those calculations. Producers built around old-vine sourcing (Sadie's Old Vine Series, the Boekenhoutskloof Semillon, Alheit's parcels, David & Nadia's Hoë-Steen Chenin) demonstrated to growers that heritage vineyards could earn more standing than they could uprooted. The narrative spread internationally: South Africa is now widely recognised as the world's most coherent old-vine wine country, a position the OVP has done more than any other body to establish.

• Old-vine Chenin Blanc, Semillon, Cinsault, Grenache, and Palomino have become defining grapes of premium South African wine
• Per-tonne pricing for certified old-vine fruit has materially improved since OVP launch, changing economic incentives for growers
• Many surviving heritage blocks were previously sold into anonymous bulk and cooperative wine; the OVP gave them a name, a date, and a buyer market
• South Africa is now widely identified internationally as the world's leading old-vine wine country, with the OVP as the public face of that positioning
• The project supports an ecosystem of growers, producers, sommeliers, and trade partners rather than just labelling finished wine

OVP-aligned producers span the geography and stylistic range of premium South African wine. Sadie Family Wines is the highest-profile example, with the entire Die Ouwingerdreeks (Old Vine Series) built on heritage parcels: Skerpioen and Skurfberg in the Cape West Coast and Citrusdal Mountain, Mev. Kirsten from a 1905 Chenin Blanc block in Jonkershoek, Pofadder from a 1974 Pofadder Cinsault, Treinspoor, and Kokerboom. Boekenhoutskloof's Semillon draws on heritage Franschhoek Semillon vineyards. Mullineux's Olerasay straw wine is sourced from old-vine Chenin Blanc. Alheit Vineyards' Cartology and Magnetic North bottlings are anchored in old-vine Chenin Blanc parcels across the Western Cape. Spier 21 Gables incorporates heritage Chenin Blanc and Pinotage blocks. Reyneke produces OVP-certified bottlings. David & Nadia's Hoë-Steen Chenin Blanc comes from a Swartland old-vine site. The list extends well beyond these, with the Old Vine Register growing year by year.

• Sadie Family Die Ouwingerdreeks: Skerpioen, Skurfberg, Mev. Kirsten, Pofadder, Treinspoor, Kokerboom, Soldaat, and Rotsbank
• Boekenhoutskloof Semillon: Franschhoek heritage Semillon vineyards
• Mullineux Olerasay: solera-style Chenin Blanc straw wine from old-vine fruit
• Alheit Vineyards Cartology and Magnetic North: multi-site old-vine Chenin Blanc blends across the Western Cape
• David & Nadia Hoë-Steen Chenin Blanc, Spier 21 Gables, and Reyneke's OVP-certified bottlings are further benchmark examples

The OVP shares a kinship with the Barossa Old Vine Charter in Australia, the most prominent comparable scheme. Both seek to formalise the heritage value of old vineyards within a wine country that has historically defined itself by something else (Barossa Shiraz, Cape volume). The two schemes differ in important ways: Barossa's Charter uses age tiers (Old Vine 35+, Survivor Vine 70+, Centenarian 100+, Ancestor 125+) and is owned by the regional body, while the OVP applies a single 35-year threshold and prints the actual planting date on a per-bottle seal verified by an independent industry body. Both frameworks have helped reshape how the international fine wine trade reads their respective countries. The OVP regularly engages with the global Old Vine Conference and similar initiatives, positioning South African heritage viticulture as a model that other emerging old-vine origins (parts of Chile, California, Spain) increasingly reference.

• Barossa Old Vine Charter (Australia): the closest international parallel; age-tiered classification rather than a per-bottle planting-date seal
• OVP uses a single 35-year threshold and prints the actual planting date on the seal, giving per-bottle traceability that no other scheme matches
• SAWIS verification gives the OVP independent industry oversight, distinct from purely self-administered classifications
• The OVP engages with the global Old Vine Conference and similar initiatives to share its methodology
• Other old-vine origins (Chile, California, parts of Spain) increasingly look to the OVP as a model for combining preservation, traceability, and trade development