A table worth the drive
Newton Johnson
Lunch with the whole Upper Hemel-en-Aarde below you.
40 minutes from the estate
High on the northern side of the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde, with a restaurant that looks straight back down it. A family estate, and the view is genuinely part of why people come.
How it got here
The Newton Johnson family have farmed and made wine here since the 1990s, and the next generation makes it now. The upper valley they sit in was recognised as a ward in its own right because the soils here are granite rather than the clay lower down.
What to do there
- Lunch on the terrace, which is the point
- Taste the pinot noir first — the upper valley makes a different wine from the floor
- Look for the Family Vineyards range
Worth knowing
- The restaurant is small and books out at weekends
- It is a working farm road up — take it slowly
Others worth the drive
Everything within about an hour.
