Spier

Spier stands at the Cape Town end of Stellenbosch, where the Eerste River runs past a werf of whitewashed gables. Governor Simon van der Stel signed the first Spier title deed in 1692, granting the property to Arnoud Jansz, a German soldier in the service of the Dutch East India Company — one of the very first farms established in the Stellenbosch district. Vines took quickly: by 1754 more than 30,000 were growing here. Two buildings anchor the werf and both carry their dates in the plaster — a wine cellar of 1767, which the estate and independent writers alike describe as the oldest dated wine cellar in South Africa, and a manor house of 1822. Spier counts 21 Cape Dutch gables across the property and says no other farm in the country has more; its 21 Gables wine range is named for them.

What distinguishes Spier from its Stellenbosch neighbours is what hangs on those old walls. The Spier Arts Trust holds one of the largest collections of contemporary South African art in the world — more than 3,200 works by the estate's own count — of which roughly a thousand are on the farm at any time, rotated and re-curated through the year so that supported artists get visibility. Paintings run from the restaurants into the hotel corridors; sculpture stands on the lawns, the paths and in the water. The 1767 cellar doubles as the main exhibition space, with shows changing about every three months. Since 2004 the Trust's Creative Block project has issued identical blank wooden blocks to hundreds of artists, buying back the finished works — a rolling commission that has become both an income stream for emerging artists and the engine of the collection.

Spier has held WWF-SA Conservation Champion accreditation since 2012, conserving rare granite renosterveld and farming part of the land organically with livestock and chickens. For visitors, a year-long renovation completed in 2025 rebuilt the hotel — fewer, larger rooms, a wellness spa, a rooftop bar and reworked pools — and reopened the art gallery in March 2025. Eating runs from Veld, the signature plant-forward restaurant, to the Garden Room, Spier Manor, Vadas Smokehouse and Bakery, and the Picknickery; picnics and Segway vineyard tours cover the ground between. The Cape Herbal Bath House spa uses scrubs, tinctures, teas and oils made on the farm.