Even from school days, Simon always wanted to be a farmer. After studying Agriculture at Stellenbosch University and working for a few years on a poultry farm, Simon took over as Villiera’s Viticulturist (in 1983 and was the first family member to join the family’s newly acquired wine business. He has always been a keen supporter of maintaining environmentally friendly vineyard management practices, with a strong focus on green energy. As a result of Simon’s efforts Villiera has been recognised as a sustainable wine farm by being awarded the Great Wine Capitals Sustainable Wine Tourism practices, The Nedbank Green Award (Leadership in conservation), the Eskom ETA awards ‘Energy Efficiency Champion’, the KLINK Awards as the ‘Greenest Wine Farm’, amongst others. Simon also works closely with the very rewarding Pebbles Project and was involved in making the OWETHU Clinic a reality at Villiera. From 2014 to 2016 Simon worked with Simonit & Sirch (from Italy) during the pruning season where they trained the Villiera Vineyard team special pruning techniques to extend the productive life of our Vineyards.
