Nelson's Creek Wine Estate

It is well documented that during the religious war many of the French Protestants, including some famous winemakers from the Loire, fled to Holland where they were prevailed upon by the Dutch East India Company to emigrate to the Cape in order to improve its fledgling wine industry. Old mud and stone buildings on the estate and an ancient underground cellar suggest that this farm was one of the first in the Paarl region to be selected for winemaking by these early pioneers. 

In pursuit of a childhood dream, Alan Nelson acquired these farms in 1987 out of a bankrupt estate. Since then, they have been lovingly restored by the Nelson family and their team of dedicated workers. 

Between 1987 and 1994 approximately 50 hectares of old vines were replaced under the watchful eye of the best viticulture consultants in the Cape with noble cultivars, including Cabernet Sauvignon; Merlot; Shiraz; Pinotage; Sauvignon Blanc; Chardonnay and Semillon. Between 1993 and 1995, a state of the art wine cellar was constructed with the help of Elsenburg oenologist Eugene van Zyl.

Wine production commenced in earnest in 1995. The very next year, the Estate won an award for the Best Chardonnay in South Africa and was in the same year crowned as the Champion Private Wine Producer in the Boland region. Since then the Estate has never looked back. The Estate has become internationally known as Nelson's Creek, named after the Nelson family and the small stream that winds its way through the Estate. It inspired and is depicted on the unique two-part label.  

The Story Behind New Beginnings 

One of the most frequently asked questions is why Alan Nelson donated a part of his farm to his farm labourers. He conceived of the idea as one of many to inspire his farm labourers to help him realise his dream of producing South Africa's best wine. All that he could offer in exchange when he bought the land on a shoestring was a promise to share in the fruits of any success that their dedication in the vineyard would bring. 

The labourers took him up on this offer and in 1996, when Nelson's Creek won the Trophy for South Africa's Best Chardonnay and was adjudged the Champion Wine Producer in this region, it was time for Alan to deliver. 

In 1998, New Beginnings produced the first wine ever to be made by people of colour from grapes grown on their own land.

Sadly, the New Beginnings crew, some time ago, received an offer for the land and due to the fact that they have not produced wine since 2003, they are seriously considering the sale of the land. We will have to wait and see what the future will hold for this undertaking.

The Story Behind The Label 

A year and a half had gone by after the Nelson's produced their first wine and still nobody could satisfy their quest for a truly unique label. After spending yet another sleepless night worrying about how he was going to pay the bank with the wine still being without a label, Alan got up at four am one morning determined that this would be the day upon which he would conceive of an idea for the label.
 
For the hundredth time he sat there racking his brains for some feature on the farm that set it apart from all of the others and that could be used as a theme for the label but nothing came to mind. Eventually, in utter desperation, he closed his eyes and started to pray. As he finished, Alan's eye caught an aerial map that was hanging on the wall of his study. It was a photograph of the farm that he had pondered over a hundred times yet on this occasion the winding river that runs through the farm from one end to the other suddenly took on a special meaning. “That's it,” he whispered gratefully, “the winding river is unique”. 
 
With crayons he drew the river on a scrap of paper. By the time the rest of the family had woken up, Alan had pasted the mock-up label onto a bottle and was enthusiastically awaiting the response to what he thought was a pretty good piece of handy work for a layman. To his dismay, when his wife Marguerite saw the label she told him to tear it up, or so he thought. A few words later and Alan realised that what she had actually meant to say was “tear it along the lines of the Creek”. And thus a label split in two was born through the combination of a woman's intuition and a touch of divine inspiration.