Bernhard Bredell is a seventh-generation member of the Bredell winemaking family, raised roaming the old bush vines of Sinai Hill in Stellenbosch’s Lower Helderberg before he was tall enough to see over them. He launched the Scions of Sinai label in 2016, driven largely by a desire to keep his family’s remaining old-vine parcels — many planted by his grandfather in the 1970s and 80s — from disappearing as the surrounding farm shifted toward younger, higher-yielding vines under other family ownership. After stints making wine in Priorat, Beaujolais and the Rhône, Bredell was named South Africa’s Young Winemaker of the Year by Tim Atkin MW after only his second vintage.
The vineyards sit on Sinai Hill’s decomposed granite and silica soils barely 4km from the cold Atlantic shoreline of False Bay, farmed organically and dry-grown with wild-yeast, minimal-intervention winemaking, unfiltered and unfined. The Single Vineyard Series includes the Swanesang Syrah (1999 bushvines), Granietsteen Chenin Blanc (1978 vines), Heldervallei Cinsault (1988 vines) and Féniks Pinotage (1976 vines), alongside the Klein Karoo’s high-altitude Gramadoelas Grenache Blanc; the Cervantes Series adds blends like the skin-macerated Señor Tallos, the rosé-style Atlantikas Pinotage, and the Chenin/Grenache Blanc/Roussanne blend Rocinante.
As a small, family-rooted project rather than a tourism destination, Scions of Sinai does not currently offer cellar tastings or a visitor experience — wines are released in small volumes via a mailing-list allocation system and stocked by specialist merchants internationally, so the best way to experience the label is by joining their release list or seeking out the wines through a fine-wine retailer.
