our story
our story
THE FAMILY
In 1956, Kloovenburg was bought by my two grandfathers, Du Toit and De Kock. Grandfather Du Toit was a sheep farmer from the Karoo close to Petrusville and my grandfather De Kock was a businessman from Malmesbury and also acted as Mayor for a couple of years.In 1957, my parents, Piet ‘Spiere’ and Barbara du Toit, moved to Kloovenburg and started to farm. It was a big challenge for both of them, as my father was a BComm graduate from Stellenbosch University, and my mother a teacher, so neither knew much about farming vineyards.
I matriculated from Swartland High School, did my two years’ military service and attended Stellenbosch University for two years before joining my father on the farm in 1987. We farmed together for two years before he retired. In 1988, I married Annalene, who shares my philosophy: start small, work really hard and success will follow. We are blessed with four boys: Pieter-Steph, Johan, Anton and Daniël, all who have helped me a lot in the cellar. Daniël has always been Annalene’s olive taster; if he likes it, everybody will love it. The children had always been involved in every aspect of Kloovenburg and that is how and why the brand Eight Feet was born.
our story
The cellar
In 1997, Pieter du Toit, his sons and a few friends made Kloovenburg’s first wine, a Pinotage. They didn’t have a destemmer or crusher, so they had to use their hands to remove the berries from the stems and stomp it with their feet to break the skins.
The juice was transferred to the Stellenbosch University to be inoculated, fermented and matured. The wine was bottled unfiltered and by hand. Only 200 bottles were produced.
In 1998, Pieter made 10 tons of Shiraz and 10 tons of Pinotage at another facility. This was the first wine to be released under the Kloovenburg label.
In 2000, Pieter build the cellar and made his own wine. The cellar has a capacity of 200 tons.