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On the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge, where ancient Bokkeveld shale meets ocean-cooled air, and the fynbos turns silver in the winter light, Creation Wines invites you to slow down, breathe deeply, and walk in the spirit of creation. This winter, the estate launches Walking in the Spirit of Creation – a six-chapter wine and food pairing menu designed to nourish not only the body, but also the mind and the human spirit through the quietest and most restorative season of the year.

Heaven Meets Earth: The Anton Smit Connection

The menu arrives at a moment of artistic alignment. World-renowned South African sculptor Anton Smit has brought his monumental works to the Creation estate, where they stand in living dialogue with the vineyards, the mountains and the sky.

‘Just like Creation is obsessed with creating superior wines, I am obsessed with creating sculptures that penetrate the soul of man,’ says Smit, whose work explores the complex and eternal relationship between God and man.

‘The works do not simply occupy the landscape – they enter into a living dialogue with it,’ reflects Carolyn Martin, Creation Wines.

It is this same living dialogue – between wine and food, between land and season, between artist and you – that anchors the new winter experience.

You are warmly invited to visit the estate and immerse yourself in Walking in the Spirit of Creation, where a guided Art Walk through Anton Smit’s outdoor sculpture exhibition can be arranged as part of your visit. Bookings for the Art Walk are open for the coming year – an extraordinary winter ritual, or a gift to carry forward into every season. To book, visit creationwines.com or contact the estate directly.

A Wine-First Menu, Told in Six Chapters

At the heart of this experience lies a philosophy that has always guided Creation: the wine leads, and the dish responds. Each course has been composed not from a recipe outward, but from the glass inward. The wine is the constant – the purest expression of the Ridge’s ancient soils – and every ingredient on the plate exists because of something the wine is asking for.

Because the senses are the pathways to the mind, you will be surprised and delighted by the connections you discover between the wine, the terroir and the table as each chapter unfolds. This is a menu that speaks to you through taste, aroma and sensation – and the further you travel through it, the more the Ridge reveals itself.

The menu unfolds as a sequence of six chapters, each intentionally placed, each physiologically and emotionally purposeful.

You arrive to a warm welcome of ginger or honeybush tea, with an invitation to stroll among Anton Smit’s sculptures before being seated. The Sauvignon Blanc is poured first. Then a Green Sattvic Winter Root Velouté arrives, with a single Spiced Brätzeli – alkalising, warming, Ayurvedic in spirit, designed to prime your digestive system for the journey ahead.

Chapter 1 pairs a Celeriac Rösti with Garden Greens, Kimchi and Green Tea Kombucha Labneh alongside the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon – live fermented kimchi and prebiotic fibre preparing you for the richer chapters to follow.

Chapter 2 brings Agedashi Tofu with Sesame, Herbs and Ginger to the Roussanne Grenache Blanc Viognier – a calming, plant-forward interlude of warm dashi and silken protein at the mid-menu moment.

Chapter 3 is where the ocean enters the glass. The Ridge Chardonnay – or the Art of Chardonnay, drawn from a south-facing slope threaded with 560-million-year-old quartz – is a wine of steely tension and mineral precision with a cool saline edge that speaks directly of Walker Bay, just 8km from these vines. At this moment in the experience, you are invited to hold a giant periwinkle shell – the Shellphone – to your ear while tasting the wine. The sound of the Atlantic floods in: the very same cold marine current that cools the Ridge and locks natural acidity into every grape. This is neuro-enology in practice: the brain constructs flavour not from taste alone, but from the simultaneous convergence of sound, aroma, memory and sensation. The ocean in the shell and the ocean in the glass become one, and the Chardonnay’s character opens in a way that no description alone could achieve. It is one of those rare moments where wine becomes a place. Then the dish arrives: B’Bos Trout – locally farmed, clean and delicate – with Avocado, Roasted Fennel and Trout Caviar. It answers the wine’s texture and weight – its gentle richness meeting the Chardonnay’s precision, the fennel’s anise warmth echoing the wine’s aromatic lift, the caviar adding a whisper of brine that the glass had already promised.

Chapter 4 the heart of the menu, presents a Springbok Shank with Polenta, Wintergreen Salad, King Oyster Mushroom, Sage, Dune Spinach and Broccoli Gremolata, paired with the Ridge Pinot Noir or Art of Pinot Noir. Iron-rich and warming, this is the course that embodies winter – earthy, wild-herb depth meeting the wine’s forest-floor complexity, violet aromatics, and supple, shale-formed tannins.

Chapter 5 arrives as a moment of pure winter warmth – a Spiced Roasted Potato and Jerusalem Artichoke Consommé with Smoked Paprika and Rosemary, paired with the Creation Syrah Grenache. The consommé is poured at the table in a slow, aromatic arc — a deeply savoury, restorative course that settles the body before the final chapter. The Syrah Grenache’s dark spice, peppery depth and generous fruit find their echo in the smoky warmth of the broth and the earthiness of the Jerusalem artichoke.

Chapter 6 closes with your choice of dessert – a Date Cake with Poached Pear, Ginger Gelato and Honeybush Toffee poured slowly at the table, a Dark Chocolate Fondant with Clemengold Gelato, or a Trio of Cheeses – each paired respectively with Creation Cape White, Fine Cape Vintage, or Elation Cap Classique.

Designed to Lift the Human Spirit
This menu has been co-created with wellness at its core. Its arc follows human digestive physiology – from alkalising opener through iron-rich warmth to calming close – while each course is positioned to serve your body’s particular needs during the cold season. It is, at every turn, a menu designed to lift.

In winter, when the world turns inward, Creation offers you a table where you are held by 400-million-year-old soils, surrounded by art that penetrates the soul, guided through wines that carry the cold ocean air of Walker Bay in every glass, and nourished by a kitchen that has responded – chapter by chapter – to what the vine asked for.

Come walk in the spirit of creation.

Wine and Food Pairing: R1 595 | Including the Art of Creation: R1 705

Art Walk bookings available for the coming year – contact the estate to reserve your experience.

Creation Wines is a WWF Conservation Champion and founder member of the Pebbles Hemel-en-Aarde Project. The estate farms regeneratively on the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge, one of the most biodiverse regions on earth. 

By Carolyn Martin