Spier: A Sustainable South African Winery

CNN International recently visited Spier wine farm, one of the Cape’s oldest estates. Established on the banks of the Eerste River three centuries ago, it has diversified over the past 25 years, cultivating the arts, building partnerships and promoting sustainability.

CNN met Mariota Enthoven, whose family owns Spier wine farm. She explains their ethos: “A very strong message and a value that has been instilled in me is that we’re not owners. No one owns a piece of land. We are custodians of a piece of land; we’re here to leave it in a better space than when we found it for the next generation to then be a custodian.”

Spier Arts Academy

When Mariota’s father, Dick Enthoven, bought the winery in 1993, it had seen better days and so he started an ambitious project to renovate, extend and decorate. He then set up the Spier Arts Trust to boost South African contemporary art.

While the farm is home to much of the art, Spier Arts Academy’s many projects are managed from a building in downtown Cape Town. Once a month a market gives emerging artists the chance to show off their talent.

Tamlin Blake, Spier Arts Trust Curator, talks about how the art scheme works: “We sort of see all the projects we run as an ecosystem. The first one being the Creative Block Project where artists come in, sort of at the bottom. We get to know who they are, and they get to know who we are and how we work. Through that relationship we spot artists who can then work on different programmes.”

Places at the Spier Arts Academy, including their mosaic school, are in high demand. The mosaic school alone receives 800 applications for its 25 places, as it offers a stipend and employment-based training alongside creative work.