Welcome to Cape Moby Winery

Our wines hail from the path of Ahab at the Cape still full of Good Hope, where in rarest moments the Cachalot Whales feed in the Agulhas current, wine and whales are the stuff of legends. Like Ishmael, with sure hands and a clear vision, we bring you this bottled tale. It’s a saga of cold nights, of hot days, of driving winds and cool rain along the jagged coastline of Table Mountain Sandstone, softened granite and dunes of purest chalk and lime stone rocks.

Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick (1851) is Ishmael’s narrative on the obsessive quest of captain Ahab, who tries to revenge the giant sperm whale Moby Dick that bit off his leg on the ship’s previous journey.

The novel tells the story of life and represents the lessons that life teaches every single one of us. It is story full of hopes, dreams, and fears. It is also a story of humbleness – last but not least as the opposite of haughtiness, egocentrism and egotism, despotism. A single person sees himself entitled to manipulate (or just use) other people to fulfil his individual demands without any respect for those others. And he feels he can trump nature and divinity – be it symbolised by the sea, be it symbolised by the whale.

The novel underlines that the key to happiness lies not within reaching your goals at any price, but rather can be represented as an act of balancing. Among others, it involves friendships, modesty and a close connection to nature.

The birth of Cape Moby Winery is a story worth mentioning for itself. It is a story full of friendship, mentorship, fatherhood, and emancipation. It is the story of Mariska and Johst.

To Mariska, who grew up on the very farm that our Cape Moby wines originate, Johst is a man with a whale of a heart. A man that is enthusiastic about growth, has compassion for people, a free spirit, and towards Mariska early on took the role of a mentor. Even though a mentor can never fully replace a father, the line between these two roles can become very thin. A mentor can easily become a father figure that has an equally significant and positive impact on a (younger) person’s life.

In turn, Mariska took her chance to evolve and to develop into the strong woman she is today. As brand ambassador of Cape Moby Winery, she nowadays strives to give back to the community and to serve as role model – particularly to younger women. She is fully convinced that with sufficient endurance, a person can achieve more than she / he ever believed to be capable of.

And just as Mariska in her own word was “mentored and nurtured by Johst”, at Cape Moby Winery we try to reflect that very process in our wines. They are mostly made from younger vines, that throughout the whole maturation process from field, to barrel, to stainless steel tank, to bottle, are given the opportunity and space to develop structure, and to evolve into the very final product that we are sharing with you.

At Cape Moby Winery, we are not only living by the values that Ishmael has derived from his adventure with captain Ahab, and the values that can be derived from the story of Mariska and Johst. Our winemaking is also inspired by a spiritual connection to Moby Dick and his descendants. We are originated in Walker Bay, precisely where the Cachalot Whales birth their calves during South African spring.