Black Pearl Wines is a winery owned and operated by the Nash family, who relocated from New Hampshire in 1995. We now find ourselves fervently making wine. The vineyard is on the western slope of Paarl Mountain, which is part of the Cape Floral kingdom. Above stretches renosterveld, of which only 2% remains in the country and which the family is conserving in this World Heritage area. Renosterveld is typically found in shale-derived soils that have a high clay content. Shale bases soils form over shale rock parent material developing from the deposition and compression of clay and silt in ancient inland lakes and seas.

The diversity of bulb species in Renosterveld is staggering compared to anywhere else in the world. At the end of the last century many of the more showy flowers were exported and developed in to best sellers on the international flower markets, e.g. gladiolus, freesias.

The grapes grow on similar terroir on which the Gladiolus and Freesia also originated. Thus we think we have very special terroir.

Shiraz was planted in 1998 (4.5 ha) followed by Cabernet Sauvignon in 1999 (3 ha). The first harvest in 2001 produced a fine Shiraz and in 2002 a small amount of Cabernet was introduced. The vineyard is dry land (no irrigation). Pruning and cropping are managed to ensure healthy, low yielding vines. The resultant wine is truly terroir driven.