Spier Estate, on the banks of the Eerste river in the heart of the Cape winelands, is a place punctuated with mystery and the sparkle of the unexpected. It has, for example, the largest collection of Cape Dutch gables (21) on a single site and includes the restored original Manor House and Slave Bell, as well as the oldest wine cellar in South Africa. But Spier is far more than a conventional wine farm.
It is home to a unique collection of unusual objects and experiences; a diverse cultural village that offers guests a rich and varied experience of delicious food, inspiring art and fine wine. It’s this rich diversity, combined with an intense social awareness, which has helped to make Spier the proud carrier of the Fair Trade in Tourism Trademark.
The Spier of yesterday plays an important role in the Spier of today. The buildings on the 1 000ha estate have grown out of a respect for this history, the winery, the geographical features, the vegetation, the farm, river and distant mountains.
A 10-minute drive from Stellenbosch, 15 minutes from Cape Town International airport and 30 minutes from Cape Town, Spier has become one of South Africa’s leading tourist destinations, accommodating more than 600 000 visitors annually.
The name Spier is thought to derive from Dutch and refers to a ‘marsh of reeds” or bulrushes. Another story refers to a previous owner, who is believed to have named the estate after his German hometown, Speyer, which, in turn, had taken its name from the Speyer tributary of the nearby Rhine river.
Whichever story is to be believed, one of the founding metaphors of Spier is undoubtedly centred on water — nature’s life-giving resource that sustains and rejuvenates.
The estate is also home to important environmental and educational initiatives as well as a 155-room hotel, conference venue, country club, golf course, equestrian centre, a spa and retail outlets.
These facilities at Spier are, essentially, the ‘shop front” of an approach that is at the core of its philosophy. In the same way that Spier strives to rejuvenate its guests, the estate understands the pivotal role it plays in revitalising and nurturing the community and environment in which it prospers.
To this end the estate is involved in numerous community and land reform projects, has adopted an ecologically sensitive building, growth and development approach, and has pioneered a number of systems that aim to create cyclical flows of natural resources and waste products. It has become a place of hope and a potential blueprint for development that will safeguard the future of the winelands as a productive agricultural area, an attractive region for people to inhabit, and a tourist destination.
An example of this is the Academy of Tennis Training that was launched in June 2001 in response to a need for an academy to foster the talent of young players and ultimately provide South Africa with world-class tennis players.
Spier was bought in 1993 by Dick Enthoven, a former Progressive Federal Party MP and businessman. Although Spier’s buildings were in a state of decay, Enthoven felt compelled to conserve and develop them.
For Enthoven, buying Spier was never a straightforward matter of acquiring prime vinelands. He talks about being a ‘custodian” of a heritage that belongs as much to present generations as it does to those in the future. ‘Spier is as much about enhancing the heritage, culture and ecology of the area and creating a sustainable financial situation as it is about creating an infrastructure conducive to normalising what used to be a distorted society,” Enthoven says.
What has emerged is a solid business with a strong sense of heritage and one that is inextricably linked to its community and environment. It is perhaps then fitting that Adrian Enthoven, Dick’s son, was appointed as Spier’s chief executive in December 2002.
Adrian Enthoven studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and has a doctorate in political science. He worked alongside Frederick van Zyl Slabbert in the negotiations around the democratisation of provincial government — his role was to facilitate agreement with the disparate interest groups.
In 1995 he joined Van Zyl Slabbert at the Gauteng Department of Constitutional Development in facilitating local government elections.
In 1999 Enthoven was appointed CEO of Biolytix — an Australian waste-management system that converts waste water and solid, organic waste into a renewable water resource — and was responsible for getting the organisation up and running. He has also been involved with other ‘green technology” investments.
In 2001 he was appointed chairperson of the Spier Holdings board. As non-executive director, his role was to work in a supportive capacity to the then CEO Ivan Palframan, taking responsibility for governance issues within the group.
Enthoven’s experience in negotiations, government, community and environment sees him ideally placed to lead Spier into the next phase of its life cycle. He fosters a flat, participatory management style that allows management teams to manage within defined financial parameters.
He is supported by a team of experienced, dynamic managers who share his passion and commitment.
‘Spier has all the building blocks for becoming a global leader in responsible tourism and we will continue to strive to create a successful business that focuses on rejuvenating and nurturing our customers, and the community and environments in which we operate,” says Enthoven.
Spier is a business that measures its performance in more than financial terms. It has embraced a policy of ‘triple bottom line” accountability that measures its success from a financial, environmental and social equity perspective. Part of Spier’s approach to implement this ‘triple bottom line” approach is through mutually beneficial partnerships with trusts, conservation and non-profit organisations that help advance the objectives of the individual initiatives, as well as Spier’s sustainability goals.
At the heart of Spier’s philosophy is the concept of providing an environment geared at rejuvenating its visitors, the surrounding community and environment.
As a diverse cultural village focused on providing a rich and varied experience of delicious food, inspiring art and fine wine, Spier has coordinated developments that support and enhance the Spier encounter.
The Village at Spier Hotel is at the centre of it all. The 155-bedroom hotel provides a unique winelands escape for those in need of some time out from the world to rest and recuperate.
‘We wanted to create a hotel that felt as though a community was living there, which, of course, is the very opposite of a hotel where the population is transitory,” says Enthoven.
Where possible, natural materials and resources have been used.
In building The Village at Spier Hotel, sustainable construction methods were used to maximise use of renewable resources. Site sensitivity, ecological impact and the energy required to produce building materials were all taken into account.
Wood was sourced from forests that were being sustainably utilised. Bricks that were not fired in conventional pits infamous for their pollution were available from a local supplier. Alternative energy sources such as gas fires for warming the rooms in winter became integral parts of the design.
Spier’s sustainability ethos is founded on the concept of ‘custodianship” of the land, communities and environment — an approach that will secure the success of the estate and ensure its heritage continues to enrich visitors well into the future.
The estate’s environmental approach is based on a key ecological principle of creating a cyclical rather than linear flow of resources.
Spier views waste as a key resource of water and nutrients with economic value that needs to be recycled for the benefit of the environment, as well as the bottom line. It is committed to extending the concept of reuse to closing the nutrient loop on site. This is where food is consumed and turned into waste. The organic waste is then turned into compost, which is used to produce organic food on Spier land.
In the process of finding the best means to recycle waste water, Spier discovered Biolytix.
The aerobic biolytic system yields a nutrient-rich water that can be used for irrigation. In this way, the purified waste water is treated as a resource rather than the pollutant that is usually flushed into rivers.
Situated less than a kilometre from The Village at Spier Hotel, the waste- water plant is completely odourless, unlike conventional sewage plants. Here, all the grey and black water from the hotel is treated, with the help of a large and diverse range of organisms — from aerobic microbes to earthworms.
The product that comes out at the end of this chain is, in effect, a liquid fertiliser. To buy the chemically-produced equivalent would be expensive. Spier is producing it for nothing.
Today Spier is reusing up to 200 000 litres of water a day, a figure expected to rise to 500 000 litres once developments on the estate are complete.
Waste water from the Biolytix treatment plant is used to irrigate Spier’s indigenous gardens, young trees that are to be planted on the golf estate and plants in the Spier nursery. (Spier has a 20% stake in Biofleur, an indigenous plant nursery that specialises in the propagation of rare and valuable indigenous plants that will gradually build up the Spier gardens as a showcase for indigenous flora.)
Yellowwood seedlings have grown at an increased rate of 10cm a month, greater than any conventional nursery, proving the value of the recycled resource.
Spier has an on-site waste recycling partner that collects solid waste and sorts it into bins. Non-organic waste is sold to commercial recycling companies. Spier also reuses a variety of organic waste sources including reject vegetables from the packing sheds and vegetable matter from the restaurants, as well as nitrogen-rich alien vegetation that is being removed from the estate, such as wattle.
Most of this organic waste is fed into Spier’s compost business, which is used to fertilise some of the land. What remains is sold to farms and nurseries across South Africa. On average Spier sells 450 tons of compost each month. Only 20% of Spier’s waste ends up at the municipal dump.
Two important projects educating on the importance of biodiversity, ecosystems and the role wildlife plays in the food chain have been launched at Spier.
The estate has donated land to the Cheetah Outreach Project and Eagle Encounters, a raptor rehabilitation programme. Both projects aim to educate through participative approach to encourage active conservation. Animals are taken into schools in the townships, providing what is often the only opportunity for poor communities to see wild animals.
Since the outset Spier has adopted an inclusive approach geared at engaging and involving the community in its growth and development. The estate has a policy of offering people who live within a 12km radius preference in its job selection process.
Spier has committed itself to developing people throughout all its for-profit and non-profit businesses. ‘Well-trained staff with the skills that can help build careers hold the key to success,” says Enthoven.
Spier has long recognised the need to redress the issue of land ownership and so, in partnership with the Legal Resource Centre, the Stellenbosch Business and Learning Centre and Sustainability Institute, it has set up the Organic Small Farm Holdings Trust for interdependent organic farmers.
The trust manages a 65ha portion of land on a long-term sub-lease from Spier with 12 farmers, each managing between 2ha and 5ha. This land was originally given to freed slaves during the early settlement of the Cape and was later appropriated by the state during the apartheid era.
It is therefore fitting that it should now be put back into black ownership. Spier pays the lease and the water bill for the farmers and provides the only tractor that the group shares and maintains.
Spier Vineyards is responsible for managing the estate’s 88ha of vineyards and is jointly owned by its employees and Spier.
The employees collectively own 25% of the shares via a holding entity called the Spier Vineyard Trust.
Each year 25% of the profits are distributed to the employees and Spier has allocated funds to the trust to facilitate the construction of housing for employees who live on Spier land. ‘By working with others and through positive commitment, we can address the imbalances of the past,” says Enthoven.
Development with a difference
One of the development projects Spier is involved in is a small, emerging hamlet called Lynedoch — currently a disconnected combination of small holdings, large wine estates, farm-worker housing clusters and a crossroads with a petrol station, shop and post office.
Although the winelands is a predominantly agricultural region dominated by capital-intensive agribusinesses, the population is expected to grow substantially over the next 15 years.
Government urban planners have recognised that if these activities are concentrated in a large town, where densities in formal areas are traditionally low, the result could be the suburbanisation of an agricultural region.
This could negatively affect agriculture, the ecology, urban infrastructure and the tourism industry while exacerbating rather than eliminating poverty.
The alternative is to focus on the consolidation of a significant number of so-called ‘rural hamlets”, which will be relatively small, high-density, mixed settlements rooted in the agricultural economy.
The Lynedoch hamlet is seen as the pilot for this approach. Within the Lynedoch hamlet is the so-called Lynedoch Development, an eco-village that has been approved by local and provincial government. The Lynedoch eco-village is situated on a 7ha property owned by the non-profit Lynedoch Development Company.
One of the primary short-term objectives was the completion of the school building for the Lynedoch Primary School, which opened in January last year.
At present, the property houses executive offices for the internationally acclaimed South African Academy of Performing Arts, Lynedoch Primary School, the Sustainability Institute offices, craft workshops, a rehearsal venue, a community centre and homes for almost 150 families.
The Sustainability Institute was established in 1999 to help achieve Spier’s vision of sustainability and propagate the values and practices that were initiated at the estate.
The institute is an international living and learning centre for studies in ecology, community and spirit.
Its project activities include the Lynedoch pre- and primary school and eco-village, land reform initiatives, renewable energy technologies, the African Human Genome Initiative and distance education for development workers.
In partnership with the University of Stellenbosch, the institute also developed the first masters programme in the practice of sustainable development and runs a number of executive programmes, courses, seminars and retreats.