MANÁ from Heaven and Earth

Writer & Photographer: Hedda Mittner

“Cancel the rest of your day,” was Suné Eksteen’s advise when I recently accepted an invitation to lunch at their farm in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, home to Bartho Eksteen Wines and Wijnskool. “We are going to kuier.”

And kuier we did, even though I was, strictly speaking, there for work. But that is rather easy to forget when your job is to taste a new food and wine pairing menu that was cheerfully being whipped up in the family kitchen by Suné and her sister, Joan Jordaan, while Bartho enthusiastically went about his new task as waiter and pourer.

Since the Eksteens bought the farm five years ago, Bartho Eksteen Wines has become a real family affair, with Suné leading the charge on all fronts and their son, Pieter Willem and his Argentinian wife, Sol working alongside Bartho as assistant winemakers. Even Shani, who is studying through Unisa, is running her own aftercare on the farm called ‘Plaasjapies’.

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