Quoin Rock Wines - Premium Weingut in Stellenbosch, Südafrika

The family-run Quoin Rock Wines winery is located high up on the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch and has recently been transformed with great attention to detail through extensive renovations into a true showpiece of luxury and sophistication. Here the Ukrainian culture of the winery owners meets South African wine history and creates an incredibly attractive and prestigious fusion.

It offers elegant architecture, striking interior design and a molecular gastronomic experience in the prestigious "Gate" restaurant. The new generation wines are impressive and have been received with great enthusiasm in the worldwide wine scene. The winery's team, advised by the highly regarded and acclaimed winemaker Chris Keet, does incredible detail work to maintain the lavish shower of prizes and awards for the highly endowed wine portfolio in the two rows of Quoin Rock and Namysto.

The inspiration for the Quoin Rock Wines name comes from the Agulhas region, the southernmost tip of South Africa, where Quoin Rock forms the second southernmost tip and where the winery's Boskloof Nature Reserve Farm is located.

History

Ships which circumnavigated the Cape on their way back to or from the markets and bazaars in the east from the middle of the 14th century until today stopped at the Cape of Good Hope - today's Table Bay Harbour in Cape Town - to supply their boats with fresh water and sufficient provisions. Farms such as Quoin Rock brought their products to the harbour and from the end of 1660, wines from South Africa were an integral part of the goods delivered to the harbour. Today, more than 350 years later, South African wines are still exported from the port of Table Bay. While wine production is the main focus at Quoin Rock in Stellenbosch, the Boskloof Farm in Agulhas concentrates heart and soul on conservation. Colourful bucks, springbok, the eland and zebras have been successfully reintroduced to the area.

Inspiration

The winery in Stellenbosch produces wines of remarkable quality and class and pampers its visitors in an immensely attractive and ultra-modern tasting lounge.

Winery master Chris Keet and winemaker Nico Walters passionately dedicate themselves to the unique terroir of the special Quoin Rocks vineyards on the slopes of the Simonsberg with passionate teamwork, transforming the grapes that thrive here into first-class, award-winning top-quality wines.

The style

The pleasure of enjoying Quoin Rocks wines is hard to describe. It offers a variety of well-balanced complex aromas that will evolve over time and reveal stunning harmonies.

The winery holds to the premise that the greatest wines are those that best reflect their soil, climate and growing conditions, commonly known as terroir, and that it is the winemakers' job to step back modestly and let the natural beauty of the grape varieties shine through.

But Quoin Rock Wines not only produces great wine, the winery grows it itself and is proud of its powerful Shiraz-Bordeaux-style red wine cuvée, its immensely rich Chardonnay, its premium MCC and its vine-dried Sauvignon Blanc.

Namysto

The highly endowed wine series Namysto celebrates with its artistic label the necklace "Namysto", one of the oldest forms of female jewellery in Ukraine, decorated with elaborate and colourful pearls.

In certain African cultures, such necklaces are still worn today not only as jewellery, but they also have a deep symbolic meaning.

Colours, materials and number of rows indicated a woman's social status and many women felt virtually naked when they left the house without wearing their "Namysto". In modern culture these necklaces are again worn and appreciated by women all over the world, but only for decorative fashion purposes and no longer for reasons of social status. Quoin Rock chose the Namysto range to represent the meeting of different cultures and to remind us how our differences can trigger creativity and enthusiasm in us.

The assignment for the designers

The designers of the Namysto label were asked to illustrate in their designs the winery owners' love for Ukraine, their country of birth, and South Africa, their adoptive country. The design should also symbolize a combination of their Ukrainian culture and the wine of their new country, combined with a sense of celebration, prosperity and harmony.

The symbol and the name

The symbol selected here is that of a necklace. In the Ukraine a "Namysto" is regarded as an amulet, which possesses magic power and gives prosperity and beauty to its owner. In South Africa, pearl necklaces have been worn for centuries and are cultural jewels. These necklaces have many meanings and one could identify the culture of the wearer by looking only at the pearls and the design of the necklace.

The visual elements

For "Namysto" the visual elements of the necklace had to be traditional and timeless. The piece had to be classic and show the colours of the pearls, representing both red and white grapes, as well as the different wines of the Namysto range.

To bring together the deeply rooted South African and Ukrainian traditions of wearing pearl necklaces with the modern customer, sophisticated engraving techniques were used on the wine label to deliver crisp, trendy designs. Each element of the design has its own pattern and shape, symbolizing the richness, color and different flavors of wine.