South Africa is rightly praised and respected around the world for how far its wines have come in the last 20 years, but it is still not seen as a major fine wine producing country. Vilafonté is looking to change that. A high-end South African wine brand, based on premium Bordeaux-style blends that, in its own words, has “an uncompromising determination to produce wines which stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the great wines of the world”. To help prove the point, and to set the scene for the imminent release of the 2021 vintage, it recently held a 21-year vertical tasting of every vintage of Vilafonté Series C all the way back to 2003 at a special event in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The invited tasters could go at their own pace, aided and abetted by head winemaker, Chris de Vries. Malu Lambert was one of those invited to attend and here she catches up with Mike Ratcliffe, one of the co-founders and lead champion of the Vilafonté brand, where they discuss ancient terroir, new irrigation technologies, the state of fine wine in South Africa, and his 100-year plan.