From the Ridge: A Season of Growing, Learning and Nurturing Home

What the Team Has Been Up To

Winter on the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge is the season we have so often missed. For years, this stretch of the calendar found us somewhere else in the world, pouring at a tasting in London, presenting on a stage in Europe, telling the Creation story far from the vines that inspire it. 

This year is different. This year we are home. 

We have always invested in our people, it is part of who we are, but the winter hibernation has given us something rare: the chance to invest even more time in the people who make Creation what it is.

Because that is the truth of this place. The wine matters, the views matter, the fynbos-scented air matters, but it is our people who turn all of it into something you actually feel. We are the first smile at the door and the last wave goodbye, the ones who notice the small things, who carry the stories, who make a visit to Creation feel less like an outing and more like being welcomed into a family home. This winter, more than anything, is about what we mean to you.

The people behind Creation

Creation is now a family of ninety, and every one of us matters. There’s our full-time team of viticulturists, our cellar team, and our kitchen and hospitality teams, and we each bring our own warmth, our own curiosity, our own way of seeing. Together we shape the texture of every single day on the estate. There is laughter in the tasting room, ideas around the table, and hearts invested in getting the smallest details right. 

It is this collective care that gives us the capacity to create those unexpected moments of hospitality that we hope you remember long after you have left us.

We have used this winter season to do what a busy year rarely allows: to slow down and genuinely invest in one another, sharing meals, walking the vineyards, learning, training, and discovering each person’s strengths and how they all fit together. 

A team this size, working as one, is the quiet engine behind everything you experience when you visit.

Leadership development, just completed

The winter season is the right time to sharpen not only what we do, but how we lead. Six of our team members have just completed the Hortgro Mazars Leadership Development Programme, a six-week course offered to the industry by SA Wine, bringing the total number of us who have been through it to twelve. It focuses on leadership skills, values and communication, and gives each person a deeper understanding of themselves: their own leadership style, their development areas, and their potential to grow. It was, in the truest sense, an investment in the warmth we want you to feel the moment you arrive.

WSET underway, and Sommelier training to come

Behind the scenes, the study never really stops. Jay-Lee and Sinethemba are two of four team members who have completed their WSET Level 2 this year, joining a group of thirty-six of us trained through the programme over the years. One of the loveliest things to witness has been the way team members collaborate, coach and mentor one another through the process, growing together as much as individually. And in September, we take the next step with Sommelier training, to deepen our fluency in service, food-and-wine pairing, and the art of guiding you through a glass. Every certificate earned is another way we can open the door to our wines a little wider for you.

Provenance tours: getting to know our neighbours

Perhaps the most joyful part of these past two weeks has been getting out together on our provenance tours. In collaboration with Susan Mann of Eat Like a Local, the team split into three groups, each setting off on a completely different tour of the region to discover its gems and learn more about the suppliers behind our ingredients. It has given us a far deeper understanding of what we serve and of the philosophy behind our motto, ‘what grows together, goes together’, and it enriches your experience through the stories and knowledge we can now share. There is nothing quite like discovering the suppliers in the towns and farms around us as a group, with fresh eyes, all over again.

A journey into Unreasonable Hospitality

In our constant pursuit to innovate and enhance your experience at Creation, our entire team has embarked on a shared study of Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality. It is an exciting new chapter for us; one all about learning more about you, our guests, and finding ever more thoughtful ways to personalise your Creation experience. We cannot wait for you to feel the difference.

Running for Pebbles: our marathon crew is doubling

There is one more story from these past weeks that has moved us all. The number of team members lacing up to run the Nelson Mandela Marathon in aid of Pebbles Community School has doubled in just the past week, a crew of six now training together for the miles ahead. What began as a couple of willing runners has become a real team within the team, and watching it happen has reminded us that Creation has never been only about great wine. It is about the support we give one another: colleagues cheering colleagues on, and a shared sense of responsibility to the community around us. When we line up in Cape Town on 18 October, we will be running side by side, for a cause bigger than any one of us.

It has been a winter of growing, learning and reconnecting. And it has set us up beautifully for the season ahead. In fact, we are already hard at work on our Spring experience, Nourishing Nostalgia, and we cannot wait to share it with you.