CELLAR TIME

OUR STORY

The O N E I R I C wine estate; pronounced “Oh! – ne – rik” and borrowed from Greek terminology roughly translated as ‘dream’ is exactly that – a hidden gem nestled in the heart of the cool-climate Elgin Valley.

Having left Rhodesia in the early 80’s with not much more than the clothes on their backs to start a new life in South Africa, the dream to own a farm was ever present, but when Matt Pascall purchased the 64 hectare farm in Elgin in 2007, he hadn’t realised what 8 hectares of grapes produced to the bottle. He enlisted the help of his old friend Benn Gunn (Iona) to harvest the grapes, make the wines and store the bottles for him.

Three years into this arrangement, Shan Pascall, Matt’s eldest daughter called Benn to enquire how much wine her father had consumed. On hearing 500 bottles within a three year period, Shan was satisfied that the wines were being consumed at a reasonable rate. However upon enquiring how many bottles were in storage and hearing 95 000 bottles were gathering dust, Shan moved to the Cape to help her father in his quest to get through the stock by taking the wines to market.

With Matt’s involvement in Copper mining, a copper theme was introduced to the labels with each varietals label playing on a different copper derivative/sulphiDE. The font was conceptualised by Jennifer Pascall, Shan’s mum, whose name is synonymous with the button world. Founder of Incomparable buttons and whose buttons can be found across many continents (www.buttonmad.org). The homestead was sketched by Shan’s brother, Blaize, who is renowned for his award winning photography. His photographic excellence can be witnessed throughout the Oneiric website and social media pages (www.pascallphotography.com). The Oneiric label is a truly family affair!

In late Nov 2012, the Pascall’s introduced the Oneiric range to enthusiasts at WineX Cape Town, to rave reviews. Michael Fridjon (South Africa’s leading wine writer, taster and judge) left Oneiric’s stand remarking “I like you guys, you’re fresh!”