I have just heard that La Motte was a finalist in the international The Drinks Business Green Awards for 2009 along with Backsberg, another Franschhoek wine estate. I am still getting the details but it is a great honour to have been a finalist.
Our entry was put together by Bryony Walmsley who wrote the following introduction talking about La Motte’s Nabot estate:
“The jackal buzzard soars over the rolling countryside of the lower Bot River valley. Almost every fence post provides a perch for sparrow hawks and steppe buzzards, waiting, watching. A black harrier quarters over the vineyards, sharp eyes looking for prey. The top end of the food chain is here. At the other end of the food chain, geckos and lizards dart in an out of the vines looking for insects; a chameleon sways on a branch, ever watchful; larger insects buzz around looking for smaller insects, which in turn hunt for….. The ecosystem is alive and functioning, but what is so special about that? The Nabot wine farm is organic – has always been organic. No pesticides to kill off the soil micro-fauna; no fertilisers to increase the salt content of the soil and run-off water; no weedkiller to leave the inter-vine ground clean and bare; no fumes; no pollution. The ecosystem services provided free by Nature are getting on with their job, with almost no outside interference – except for the vines of course.”