Gun Bay is a South African wine brand conceived by Andrew Ing in collaboration with notable local winemakers. Since 1806, two 18-pounder smoothbore muzzleloaders on Signal Hill have been watchfully guarding Cape Town’s Table Bay. One is fired daily at noon to mark midday.
This centuries-old tradition harks back to the days of sailing ships that would shelter in Table Bay from the wild storms that battered the coastline. The ships needed an accurate timepiece to calculate longitude before once more embarking on their perilous journeys. The Noon Gun ritual continues to this day, and whilst we can set our watches by the cannons, we like to think that this tradition also honours those who defended the grape harvest in our beautiful Cape winelands.
The character and landscapes of our majestic Cape winelands have been sculpted by remarkably varied weather patterns since the dawn of time. These ancient, now trellised slopes and valleys that contain many different rock and soil types, are characterised by magnificent sandstone mountains punched upwards from the restless shifting of tectonic plates aeons ago, with endless rounded granite foothills merging into undulating shale hillocks.
This sweeping countryside is complemented by the cold Atlantic Ocean on the west coast, and the warm Indian Ocean to the east, with cool sea breezes leading to a slow, optimum ripening of the grapes to produce full-bodied fruit flavours you will find in our wines. Just as there is truth in the old Cape saying that “a vineyard that can see the sea is a good vineyard,” so too do the wines that are produced down at the foot of Africa in this rough-hewn Mediterranean climate lend credence to the adage that true character is formed in the crucible of adversity.
After the blistering summer heat subsides and the roaring south-easterly winds abate, March and April bring idyllic weather, with autumn casting Van Gogh-yellow shades over burnished vineyards that roll out from the mountains to the sea. In winter, the snow-capped peaks of the Boland on blue-sky days contrast with wild north-westerly winds that herald the onset of tumultuous storms and a deluge of rains. With the first push of spring the roots of the vines twist their way further into the soil, and bursting green buds signal the beginning of another harvest.
