Andrea and Chris Mullineux are a formidable husband and wife team who met at a wine festival in Champagne while both doing harvest stints in France. Andrea – who grew up in California – heads up the cellar and winemaking side of the business and works with an incredible precision and attention to detail, while South African Chris is the viticulturist and responsible for sales and marketing. They have become world-famous for their single terroir range, which shines a spotlight on two of the Swartland’s most prestigious varieties: Syrah and Chenin Blanc.
Mullineux & Leeu Family Wines were one of the original four pioneers of “The Swartland Revolution”, and the pair started working with Swartland fruit in the early 2000s. In 2014 they bought the spectacular Roundstone Farm on the southwest side of the Kasteelberg, from where they had been sourcing Syrah for almost a decade – and spent the following three years building a new cellar and expanding the plantings. The new vines have been planted along the contours of the land, to minimise erosion and capture as much rainfall as possible, amid natural corridors of fynbos (the native South African shrub-like vegetation).
