1882
The First Move
The story begins in 1882. A missionary, a farm, and an inheritance. What was meant to become a sanctuary would have to wait its time. Hope was deferred, yet it began a series of moments that would define generations.
Zwartwater’s journey began in 1882, five generations ago, when a young missionary certain of his calling, zealous in his work, set his feet on South African soil to serve another nation. Later, he assumed a role of leadership, in his service to the church.
At that time, his wife’s inheritance from Germany bought land: Zwartwater. It was meant to be a promise of rest after long years of service, hopefully a place where roots would hold, where the soil could carry a new dream of farming for the next generation.
Sadly, Zwartwater was unsuitable for their plans of agriculture at that time. The land of rocky soil and wetlands quickly dissolved his son's dream of farming. Then, an unforeseen end to his service in the church, became another shift in the plan. They settled on a friendlier land, more suitable, and practical for agriculture.
Suddenly Zwartwater stood in waiting. It could no longer be a sanctuary. What was purchased in hope became a deferred promise. A Pivotal Moment, though no one called it that yet.
The weight of it lingered with reasons unknown for the time being.
1991
From Strategy to Surrender
Eighty-nine years later, the land received its first inhabitant after a sudden heart attack shook the pattern of strategic plans. What seemed like interruption became rebirth. Strategy gave way to surrender, and surrender gave new life.
The land was still there, if only in name. No member of the family had yet made it a permanent home, but a grandson in the third generation, had begun to work the soil. Not with crops, but with trees! Forestry had been introduced to the region.
Now, another generation later, a fourth-generation son, Martin, determined in his strategy, had taken yet another different path: mathematics, actuarial science, and an MBA. The future seemed certain, paved with numbers. Not soil. Farming was far from his mind.
Then came 1989. His father suffered a sudden heart attack. It was the kind of moment that reminds you how fragile our grasp is, how swiftly the ground can shift beneath our feet. Though his father survived, the tremor left its mark. Or would it awaken the true heritage that would follow? Responsibility pressed upon him. The inheritance of the land was no longer a distant possibility but a looming reality.
In 1990 he returned from city life, reluctantly, telling himself it would only be for a year. To help, to prepare, maybe even to buy time. But the reckoning arrived. One far deeper than career or circumstance. In a quiet and intentional act of surrender, his plans were laid to rest, his own ambition sacrificed. What followed was the birth of peace that reshaped his path. A path he could no longer ignore.
By 1991 he moved onto Zwartwater itself. Just him and his dog. The first of the family to call it home since it was bought eighty-nine years earlier by his great grandfather. What had been waiting in memory now became reality. The farm was no longer just property. It was a way of life. An ethos.
2017
Culmination of an Unrealised Future
After years of trials and blessings on the journey, the pivot came again. Another crossing, but this time two separate journeys converged along the way, and it almost seemed as though the future was mapped out in detail.
Zwartwater was a way of life through seasons of abundance and adversity. Marriage, children, and the growth of property were matched with fires, unrest, and a very real temptation to flee. Yet again and again, the Johannes family chose to surrender.
For decades they stayed, raising six children around the table, expanding Zwartwater into forests, fields, and community. In 2015, a visit from a former neighbour, now living in Australia, became the unexpected catalyst of another pivotal moment. At the dining table, one of the fifth-generation sons asked quietly, “Is this not the open door?” That question became the turning point.
From there, one detail after another aligned. Encounters that seemed accidental became answers without questions. Doors opened that no hand had forced. Even words spoken a decade earlier resurfaced, echoing like prophecy kept in trust until its time had arrived.
By 2017, the decision was made. The family crossed oceans, leaving 25 years of hard work behind, stepping into an unknown future in Australia. When they arrived, the land they were given was not forests as they were used to, but vineyards. Mystery. For a while Martin was learning to tend vines for the first time. Across the ocean, in a story all his own, his eldest son, Stefan, had already fallen in love with the world of wine. Two journeys, once completely separate, began to run together, the lines converging almost imperceptibly. What had once seemed a scattering of the family in different directions began to show its design? Maybe even a glimpse of the future.
Or so it seemed…
2021
No Water, no Way
The dreams in Australia changed at yet another steep turn. Borders closed, family divided, and grief deepened. A new path was about to begin in South Africa, and its cornerstone was soon to be encountered...
In Australia, a plan had begun to take shape. Stefan and his family would soon join, and together they would open a cellar in the Hunter Valley. The future seemed certain.
Then 2020 came with a sudden and heavy hand. Covid. Travel was banned completely, and separated families became reality. It truly exposed how fragile human plans could be. What looked like a sure path closed suddenly, almost cruelly.
In 2021, grief deepened when Martin’s mother passed away in South Africa, and the borders kept a son from burying his own mother. At the same time, grandchildren were expected, with no assurance they would ever be held. The fracture of distance became unbearable for everyone. So the family chose again, together: return!
In December 2021, they boarded a flight back to South Africa and resolved to seek a place where they could live simply, sustainably, and close together. The search for land began quickly. On the 28th of December, they visited their very first farm. It was dismissed as “too hot, too dry, no water.” So, no way! They looked at nearly thirty other properties after that. All promising in their own ways, but none carried peace. A decision seemed impossible.
Then, in July 2022, at dawn by a quiet dam, came another act of surrender. It was as simple as it was complete.
Within a week, the call came from Stefan. A neighbour had asked for a family to take stewardship of the first farm they had visited, and the once-dismissed land resurfaced. “If it is meant to be, who can call it too dry?” Thus, “no way” became, the way!
2022
The Rains Came
Occupation began in drought, but scarcity gave way to abundance in a way that was unexplainable.
On the day the family took occupation of the farm, the 15th of December 2022, it rained. Not a drizzle, but torrents. The land was very dry, it was not the rainy season, yet the heavens opened. Can anyone explain that?
By June 2023, the farm’s dam, long dried up and half-forgotten, swelled until its wall gave way. The workers whispered to each other, almost in awe: “Since the Johannes family has come, it’s raining!”
In June 2024, after the dam wall was repaired, the miracle repeated. From near-empty, within a week, it was overflowing. Abundance where scarcity once ruled.
It was as though the land itself had been waiting. As though the first rejection; “too hot, too dry, no water” had always been the prelude to this moment. Fear had said, no way. Providence contradicted undeniably.
For the family, this was no accident. This was confirmation that the walk of surrender, marked not by strategy or wisdom, would be the foundation of the future.
2024
The Birth of Zwartwater
Through five generations, surrender at pivotal moments has carried us. Instead of a destination, it became a way of life. Zwartwater was born - a witness to trust, surrender, and excellence.
It has become clear: the path that began five generations ago was always leading here. Zwartwater is not about arrival, but about embracing the moments that reroute everything that follows in a stature of surrender.
The lineage of the Johannes family, with its trials, detours, and reckonings, has culminated in this lifestyle: Surrender, Trust, Togetherness, and closely with them, Excellence carried in a spirit of stewardship. But the land, too, has its own lineage. Lammershoek: decomposed granite, ancient soils, centuries of story beneath the surface, all waiting, as though for this convergence.
When family and land finally met at Lammershoek, Zwartwater was born.
Zwartwater seeks to embody, in wine, the highest potential of what Lammershoek’s promising fruit can yield, and in philosophy, a spirit of surrender when the pivotal moments come. A beautiful wine, a companion to Pivotal Moments, shared in celebration or quiet reflection.
Zwartwater is not a finished work. Not a destination, but a journey. One that now invites others to walk alongside, and participate.