It was soothing to taste light, fresh, crisp and succulent wines — white and red — on day three of the March heatwave in Cape Town when the mercury climbed to the high 30s and low 40s.
The event was the release of the 2025 wines from Craven Wines, a producer that showcases the diversity possible in sticking to Stellenbosch-only fruit. Three reds, two whites and one in between have caused it — and the Wine & Spirits Board certifiers — no small amount of headaches.
Aussie-born Mick Craven and his wife, Jeanine, started Craven Wines in 2013 after having met in Sonoma, California, in 2007. It’s a tribute to the duo’s well-articulated and executed “hands off” aesthetic or philosophy that the wines are some of the purest and most expressive examples around. They are beautifully refined and approachable while also being damn delicious.
Refined, not in the sense that someone has tinkered, tweaked, twiddled or manipulated things until they fit a preconceived notion, but as wines that speak of the grape and the place they are from. Precisely what the Cravens aim to capture: grape, site and soil in their simplest manifestation.
It’s simplicity that takes a lot of organisation and preparation to allow the grapes to undergo spontaneous fermentation, without the assistance of packets of manufactured yeast, enzymes or additives. It’s also why questions about oak maturation are superfluous because concrete tanks are their choice, as they don’t interfere with grape flavour expression.
“We say this every year, but it’s a vintage that’s very exciting to release,” Mick says. “It honestly is because 2025 was just such an easy vintage.” He relates how foreign cellar rats couldn’t believe they were told to go home at 3pm in harvest. “Work’s done, mate!” The cellar had been cleaned down, equipment washed, and there was nothing more to do than for nature to take its alchemical course.
Jeanine, who spends time in the vineyards, says the preceding winter delivered good rains that the vines loved. “And in November-December of 2024, a few weeks before harvest, there was a little bit of rain which kept the vines going.” Added to that was the good diurnal difference of hot days with cool nights that allowed the plants to rest and ripen at an unhurried pace.
“The grapes were beaut! Low pH but with really good acid. I don’t know if we’ll see another vintage like it for a long time,” Mick says. It was also the first year they vinified everything — chardonnay, chenin blanc, pinot gris, cinsaut, grenache and syrah — in concrete.
It’s my favourite to make in the cellar because it teaches me so much. It’s a stubborn little grape
— Mick Craven
Referring to sourcing grapes from growers in different areas of Stellenbosch, Mick says they learnt so much — and not trying to force anything was key. “Making wines from the same vineyards year after year, we aim for a one percent improvement rather than big leaps or major changes.”
The one thing that is front of mind for the Cravens is the need to make wines they would like to drink. “The chenin, for example, is one of my favourite wines to open and drink, especially when it has a few years of age on it.” It’s easy to see why because it’s a thrilling wine to taste; energetic with lovely elderflower and pineapple fruit on the nose and palate but with a lissom body, structure, length and overall presence.
The chardonnay and chenin blanc benefit from the granitic soils in the Polkadraai area. Cinsaut is from the Faure area, overlooking False Bay, while the grenache is on a slope between Spier and the Polkadraai road. The odd one out is The Firs syrah from Stellenbosch’s Devon Valley area, grown in schist- and clay-rich soils.
The pinot gris is the wine they’re best known for. This is because of their arm-wrestling with the local Wine & Spirits Board over precisely how to classify this natural wine. Just like JK Rowling collected rejection slips from publishing houses, the Cravens chalked up rejections because it didn’t fit an easy frame of reference. “We shout about expressing site and place, but this is one wine where it’s about style,” Mick says. “It’s my favourite to make in the cellar because it teaches me so much. It’s a stubborn little grape, this.” (A bit like Mick confronting the board time after time.)
Fermentation is done on skins and the wine consequently takes on a coppery red hue, which is why trying to get certification as a white wine initially failed, even though pinot gris is theoretically a white wine grape. “We’ve reached consensus with the board that it can be labelled as a skin-fermented white — but that can only be printed on the back label, not on the front label.”
It was picked in two tranches, the earlier portion for its bright, tangy acidity and the later portion for structure and body. “We had no idea that this would be one of our most popular wines,” says Jeanine. “It’s such a food-friendly, delicious wine, but there’s not a lot of pinot gris planted in South Africa. I wish we could get 10 times the grapes we do because we’d easily sell it all.”
Simply put, all their wines are, first, delicious, and second, bright, energetic and engaging. Not frivolous or lightweight, but structured, well defined and focused without being heavy or forceful, particularly the reds. There’s a light hand on the tiller, and it’s obvious the Cravens are steering a clear, focused and oh-so-tasty path.
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