Daschbosch
South Africa
Breedekloof doesn't have the reputation of Stellenbosch or the romance of Swartland, and that's rather the point. Tucked into the valley around Rawsonville, inland from Cape Town, this is a region long associated with bulk wine and co-operative cellars rather than single-vineyard bottlings. DaschBosch exists to prove that reputation wrong. Created by uniWines, the Rawsonville-based producer with deep roots in the valley, DaschBosch is a project built specifically to seek out the old vines and heritage plantings that Breedekloof has quietly been sitting on for decades. Bush vines and forgotten blocks that never made it beyond a co-op tank, farmed by growers who watched fashion pass them by while their vineyards kept quietly producing something special. The wines under this label are the result of finally taking that material seriously. The range's calling card is the Avon Clairette Blanche, made from vines on Isak Visagie's Avon farm on the slopes of the Olifantsberg. Clairette Blanche isn't a grape most UK wine drinkers will have encountered. It fell out of favour in South Africa decades ago, pulled up across the Cape in favour of more commercially fashionable varieties, but pockets survived in places like this, kept by growers who saw no reason to rip out vines that were still performing beautifully. Barrel-fermented and full of texture, it's a genuinely rare find: a dry white built from a grape that almost vanished entirely. We stock DaschBosch because it does exactly what we look for in South African wine: it finds something singular in a place everyone else overlooks. Breedekloof rarely gets mentioned alongside the Cape's more celebrated regions, but that's beginning to change, and producers like this are the reason why. If you want to taste a piece of South African wine history that very few people outside the country have ever encountered, this is where to start.
The Daschbosch Story
DaschBosch began life as an idea inside uniWines, the Rawsonville producer that has spent years working with growers scattered across Breedekloof. Rather than folding everything into large-volume blends, the team started identifying individual old vineyards and heritage plantings across the valley, sites with real character that had never been bottled on their own terms.
The clearest example is the Avon Clairette Blanche. The vines were planted in 1977 on Isak Visagie's Avon farm, on the lower slopes of the Olifantsberg mountain. For decades they simply existed as part of the farm's plantings, their fruit disappearing into the co-operative system along with everyone else's. Clairette Blanche itself had fallen badly out of fashion in South Africa by then, a grape most growers had abandoned in favour of easier-selling varieties.
It wasn't until 2018 that the Avon fruit was finally bottled as a dry white in its own right, under the Avon label as part of the wider DaschBosch range. By that point the vines were already over 40 years old, gnarled and low-yielding in the way old bush vines tend to be, producing fruit with a depth and concentration that younger plantings simply can't match.
That first vintage marked something bigger than a single wine. It signalled that Breedekloof's old vineyards, long treated as anonymous bulk-wine sources, deserved recognition as some of the valley's most valuable assets. DaschBosch has continued building its range around that same conviction: track down the forgotten old vines and heritage varieties of Breedekloof, and let them finally speak for themselves.
Winemaking Philosophy
Daschbosch isn't chasing trends. It's chasing history, hunting down old vineyards scattered across the Breedekloof valley that might otherwise have been pulled out and replanted with something more fashionable. The philosophy here starts in the vineyard: find vines with real age behind them, understand what makes each site distinctive, then get out of the way as much as possible in the cellar.
Take the Avon Clairette Blanche. The vines were planted back in 1977 on Isak Visagie's Avon farm, on the slopes of the Olifantsberg, and by the time this became a dry white wine under the Avon label in 2018, they'd already clocked more than forty years in the ground. That kind of vine age changes everything. Yields drop, roots dig deeper, and the fruit arrives with a concentration and complexity that young vines simply can't match.
Barrel fermentation plays a role too, adding texture and quiet richness without masking what the site itself is saying. It's a technique that demands patience and a light touch, letting the wine develop character slowly rather than forcing it.
What ties it all together is a belief that Breedekloof, often overlooked in favour of more famous Cape regions, has stories worth telling. Daschbosch exists to tell them, one rescued old vineyard at a time.
Wines from Daschbosch
A selection of Daschbosch wines available through South African Wines.
