By David Beer, on behalf of the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA)
The external façade of the upper section of a new winery’s security and cooling rooms at Constantia Uitsig Wine Estate has been embellished with Constantiaberg, natural-looking cast-stone cladding supplied by CTM as part of its Stonewall cladding range. The cladding material was produced for CTM by cast-stone manufacturer, Revelstone.
The winery formed part of a new-building programme on the estate which included Heritage Restaurant Cottages and The Bike Park.
Completed in 2019, the cladding work was done by Denobriga Tiles as a sub-contractor to Cape Additions, which constructed this and other new buildings on the estate.
Uitsig Wine Estate owner, Anthea Erasmus, said that obtaining Heritage approval for the various projects on the estate was a protracted process and caused long delays.
“This and the fact that none of the existing buildings had any heritage value was why we decided on futuristic designs for the new winery. We did consider natural stone for the cladding, but the cost was exorbitant. And given the height of the wall, the cladding process with natural stone would have been decidedly dangerous.
“My inspiration for the cladding resulted from a visit to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles where the stone cladding softened a large flat building façade. Similarly, Revelstone’s cladding has tempered the harshness of the ground-floor glass frontage and the rectangular shape of the Uitsig winery.
“Chris Marshall of Cape Additions was the mastermind in achieving the look that I wanted; it’s close to perfect and our visitors love it.”
Uitsig Wine Estate was first planted in 1685. Besides crafting some of the Cape’s finest wines, the estate is involved with several corporate social responsibility programmes which address education, unemployment and wildlife conservation.
