Raka: The Fisherman's Friend

The Origin of the Winery

The Raka winery is located on the banks of the Klein river in an area called Stanford which is situated in South Africa's Western Cape region. It has been in the same family ever since Piet Dreyer, a fisherman by trade, bought the land to run as a farmstead in 1982. It wasn't until 1999 that the first 10 hectares of vines were planted and the vineyards have been growing year on year and currently stand at 68 hectares with 11 grape varieties being cultivated.

Why Raka?

Since the age of 16 Piet Dreyer supported his family by working after school and at the weekends on his friend's father's fishing boat. The sea and fishing remained his passion and he worked his way up to eventually owning and skippering his own freezer-vessel which he called Raka.

Piets boat was unique amongst the squid vessels of the Cape in that it was completely black. Piet made this decision in order to avoid all of the cleaning that came along with the jet black ink that the daily catch of squid would squirt over the boat. The name Raka originates from the Afrikaans poem by N.P. van Wyk Louw, about an African tribe being threatened by Raka, half man half beast and as black as the night. 

He took this name as his brand when he ventured, with equal passion, into winemaking - hence the slogan: born of the sea, guided by the stars, blessed by the earth.