Vergelegen bolsters brand refresh with new distribution
Published: 04 February, 2025
Coinciding with a major rebranding programme, Vergelegen wine estate is pursuing a double-pronged approach for its UK distribution which will now be fulfilled by two separate partners.
Effective from 3 March, the newly refreshed wine labels from the South African brand’s Vergelegen’s Heritage, Reserve and Estate ranges will join the Seckford Agencies as its off-trade distributor in the UK.
From the same date, family-managed wine agency, Ellis Wines, will take on distribution of Vergelegen’s new wine labels in the UK on-trade.
The brand was previously represented in the UK by Fells.
Winemaker Luke O’Cuinneagain commented: “As we introduce our beautiful new wine labels to the UK, it’s timely to be partnering with Seckford and Ellis to help us to share our first design revision in two decades with wine drinkers in this market. We are delighted to embrace these new labels at the start of what we plan to be an exciting year for Vergelegen.”
Vergelegen’s global brand refresh is the result of a three-year project involving ‘reflection and collaboration’, the brand said.
The Heritage Range plays the ‘storyteller’ role, highlighting Vergelegen’s history. Each wine – including Florence Rosé, Wild Winds Sauvignon Blanc and Mill Race Red Blend (the latter returning after a 10-year hiatus) – refers to a moment or key date in the estate’s timeline.
The Reserve Range meanwhile features terroir-inspired drawings from artist Linda Smal, illustrating the surrounding Helderberg mountain amphitheatre.
Lastly, the Estate White and Red wines are named in tribute to Vergelegen’s commitment to quality. The new labels take inspiration from the historical homestead and gardens surrounding the estate.
The Heritage and Reserve Range labels are printed on 100% recycled paper and packaged in 100% recyclable materials, while retaining the brand’s signature octagon label shape.
Vergelegen’s icon wine, V, has undergone a packaging refresh that will be available from May 2025.
and an in-depth article from SA Farmers Weekly….
Vergelegen has been rejuvenated to pursue its destiny. Wayne Coetzer, managing director of the wine estate, spoke to Brian Berkman about significant changes being made to its farming and hospitality aspects.
Vergelegen wine estate, near the top of Lourensford Road in Somerset West, Western Cape, is bordered by the Lourensford, Erinvale and Morgenster estates and has been an important agricultural centre for more than 320 years.
In the past five years, important changes to the farming and hospitality aspects of Vergelegen have seen the business improve its product range and customer-facing service offering significantly.
Vergelegen’s wine range, its primary agricultural output, has been overhauled for the first time in several decades. Reducing the number of wines from 17 to 10 has been a three-year process, and their new labels better reflect Vergelegen’s natural heritage and plans for the future.
Wayne Coetzer is Vergelegen’s managing director and a renowned captain in hospitality circles. He previously helmed The Oyster Box Hotel in KwaZulu-Natal’s Umhlanga Rocks and oversaw its glamorous, high-end refurbishment.
“Our intention is to optimally portray Vergelegen, appeal to new and established wine lovers, and ensure success in an already highly competitive industry. The design update reflects the many attributes that contribute to Vergelegen’s legendary status and underpins management’s commitment to conserving this special estate for future generations,” he says.
Vergelegen Managing Director Wayne Coetzer (left) and Vergelegen winemaker Luke O‘Cuinneagain toast the success of their new wine range.
“As the elusive horizon of perfection is always the enduring common goal of Vergelegen, she must, as the organic living, breathing entity that she is, occasionally reawaken and grasp moments that will inspire and motivate, yet at the same time never lose sight of her heritage, nor her commitment to excellence and unwavering devotion to achieving the highest standards possible.
“Like a stately home or classic car, the estate requires occasional tender loving care. Vergelegen is wriggling out of its old carapace and emerging rejuvenated and invigorated to pursue its destiny. This represents a rebirth,” explains Coetzer.
Two thousand people were polled to better understand the market’s associations with Vergelegen and to grow the existing positive associations around the estate’s heritage.
“In my opinion, we have failed over the years to tell our beautiful stories with our wines and their labels. We are far more than a wine farm; this is a very special place with wonderful people and remarkable stories to be told.
“On the commercial side, the reason we have had to rebrand is to increase sales through a fresh new look that creates visibility. We have listened to our customers, the likes of supermarket chains as well as small, independent operators, and our distributors around the world who have asked us for better labels. Hopefully, this will lead to a rebirth and growth through new listings,” says Coetzer.
Updated wine range
“In the Heritage wine range we have Florence Rosé and Wild Winds Sauvignon Blanc, and after a 10-year hiatus from the market, the Mill Race Red Blend is back. These labels are the storytellers of the wine portfolio and represent significant places on the estate.”
Heritage prices range from R150 to R180 per bottle, says Coetzer. He adds that the Reserve range, which includes MCC, Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, range in price from R330 to R400, while the Estate White and Estate Red, formerly named GVB, are priced at R375 and R550 per bottle, respectively.
The labels for the Estate range link to the estate’s gates, the 320-year-old camphor trees, and the historic manor house.
The Icon range is the estate’s top-end offering, and V is only available by allocation and then only in years when winemaker Luke O’Cuinneagain determines its exceptional quality. At R2 000 per bottle, this is an investment wine. The first V vintage in the new packaging is 2019, and it will be released on 1 April each year, beginning in 2025.
Coetzer has been able to leverage the many strong relationships with foreigners and expat South Africans living abroad that he developed while running The Oyster Box Hotel. This has benefitted Vergelegen, and he has worked with partners to create the V wine club in the US to directly export premium wines to special interest groups, linking with distributors globally.
Increasing touchpoints
Coetzer has also worked to transform Vergelegen’s hospitality culture, moving from a rigid corporate approach to one that is willing to provide a wider range of services to customers. He expanded the retail offering and on-farm activities so people who aren’t wine drinkers still have plenty to see, do and buy.
“Service is what you do, but hospitality is how you make people feel when you do it,” says Coetzer.
Now, in addition to the updated range of wines, products inspired by the famous rose gardens on the estate are available in an elegantly packaged range of bathroom amenities and scented soya candles to purchase online and at the estate, along with estate honey.
A new standalone gift shop, currently under development, will be an additional retail outlet for the estate’s high-end products.
“We have already increased the number of annual visitors to Vergelegen from 90 000 to well over 150 000, so the improvements are working,” he says.
“We strive to offer an authentic experience in everything that we do on the estate. Previously, wines were made in the French style, whereas now we are making wines that best reflect our terroir, and we are receiving the accolades and high scores that confirm this.
“The RMB Starlight Classics music concerts have, since inception, been hosted at Vergelegen and we’re about to introduce an MCC wine, Stellar, linked to this,” he says.
New eventing space
In Vergelegen’s long and storied history, owners have welcomed the most notable personalities of the day and, with the highly anticipated launch of the new all-glass eventing space adjacent to where Café Fleur restaurant was previously, high-end events for up to 300 people can soon take place.
“These events will not impact other visitors to the estate, as parking and access will be from a separate entrance. There are many marquee-type event spaces, but ours will be quite different.
“Our picnics, for which the estate is rightly famous, have been elevated in the food offering, and we have replaced the picnic chairs with more elegant and comfortable ones. Stables and The Rose Terrace Tea Room are the main areas where visitors can enjoy our cuisine.
“Currently, there is a pop-up Cabernet & Carne restaurant that has received a lot of support,” says Coetzer.
Game drives
Eben Olderwagen is Vergelegen’s environmental project manager, and he took Farmer’s Weekly in one of the two game-drive vehicles around the estate and into the proclaimed nature reserve.
“The seat belts are an Anglo American safety standard,” he says, adding that vehicles that transport farmworkers all have seat belts. [Anglo American purchased Vergelegen in 1987.]
The Vergelegen winery, located at the top of the hill and 11m underground, is now off-grid with 500 solar panels covering 1 400m². The winery has also installed three inverters and a 1MW battery.
“Sustainability and winemaking go hand in hand,” says Olderwagen. He adds that a number of environmental measures are under way. The clearing of alien trees was a primary focus and now the regrowth of indigenous vegetation and the introduction of wildlife that previously roamed the area are in progress.
Introducing Rau Quagga
Game on Vergelegen includes eland, bontebok, black wildebeest, red hartebeest and other species. As a result of selective breeding the southern plains zebra, in a project to replicate the extinct quagga, the number of Rau quagga on Vergelegen is also growing.
Nguni cattle were introduced in 2001, and the herd of about 400 includes six stud bulls.
About 120 of the 180 cows were with calves during Farmer’s Weekly’s visit in September.
Another of Coetzer’s innovations is to move the visually pleasing Ngunis to pastures that are in proximity of the wine-tasting centre so that visitors can admire them.
Combatting leafroll virus
Olderwagen says the farm has had great success in combatting leafroll virus (GLRaV-3), which is spread by the mealybug. Prof Gerhard Pietersen, research director at Patho Solutions, has worked closely with Vergelegen viticulturist Rudolf Kriel. The programme includes releasing predatory wasps by drone, followed by ladybirds, and has proved incredibly effective.
According to Olderwagen, Pietersen shared Vergelegen’s successful strategies with other industry players at a field day at Vergelegen earlier this year. Pietersen said that only 3% of other wine producers apply their control programmes as effectively as Vergelegen does.
While their work together with Stellenbosch University to combat polyphagous shot hole borer beetle provided useful scientific insights, to date, it hasn’t been as successful as hoped, and new tree plantings attempt to mitigate this. [The little beetle tunnels into the trunks, stems and branches of trees and plants, eventually killing them.]
Olderwagen says the core of their environmental practices was the alien vegetation clearing project and the collaboration with CapeNature, resulting in 1 900ha of the estate now enjoying the same conservation status as Kruger National Park.
Vergelegen’s alien-clearing project is the largest privately funded such project in South Africa. The estate now protects 15ha of critically endangered Lourensford alluvium fynbos and 105ha of critically endangered Swartland shale Renosterveld.
Giving nature a chance to recover
Since the year 2000, bird numbers have been counted each month and have increased from fewer than 50 species to 146 recorded to date.
“This is what happens when you give nature a chance to recover,” says Olderwagen, in direct reference to the alien clearing, which has also had positive effects on water availability and in reducing run-off.
The populations of wee waxbill and African olive pigeon have grown, and Vergelegen is one of the few places where one can see large flocks of these species.
Given Coetzer’s future plans, Vergelegen’s previous caretakers, all the way from Willem Adriaan van der Stel to the Theunissen, Phillips and Barlow families, would have been pleased that the estate’s longevity will be guaranteed for future generations.
“Beautiful labels, delicious wine, warm hospitality, a commercial mindset, and a team with the same vision should revive the brand,” says Coetzer.
