Grape expectations

AS he pulled up the long driveway to Eaglevlei, Tony Hindhaugh felt like he had come home. With its 50 hectares of land, mature vines and South Africa's Stellenbosch mountains rising dramatically in the distance, Tony knew he had found the perfect place. The place where his dreams could come true.

"As soon as I saw it I thought 'this is it'," he says, with a hint of a Geordie accent. "There was just that special aura and as I walked along the terrace and saw the Stellenbosch mountain range... it was immediate. I instantly had ideas about what I wanted to do."

For Tony, 36, finding his perfect wine estate came after months of planning and a decade of dreaming about the possibility of owning a tourist attraction centred around wine. He had first fallen in love with South Africa while travelling with his then girlfriend and now wife, Sue, in 1996. When he visited Stellenbosch it was like a thunderbolt had hit him.

"It was so beautiful, amazing," he says. "There were all these white Cape Dutch buildings with gables, all the vines, the blue sky. We fell in love with it, and from that point we both said some day, we'll have a wine estate in Stellenbosch."

But, of course, mortgages, children, and careers got in the way. Tony had grown up in Cullercoats, Tynemouth, and moved to London when he was 27 to work for an oil and gas company. He later moved back to the North-East with Sue and the couple have four children, Beccy, seven, Henry, five, Hugo, three, and 18-month-old Tom. Tony had a high-flying job with the Newcastle-based Sir John Fitzgerald's, his father-in-law's management business. Still, the wine estate was always at the back of his mind.

Then one day fate stepped in. In 2004, he attended a benefit concert and sat next to a businessman who worked in the media.

"As the conversation went on, we got talking about South Africa and I said I'd always wanted a wine estate," recalls Tony. "He said to me 'that sounds like it would make a good TV programme, would you be interested?"

Before he could say grape escape, Tony had a meeting with the Discovery Channel and was signed up as the subject of a ten-part documentary which would follow his progress as he attempted to get to grips with the wine business. He persuaded investors to back him in the venture to the tune of £1m and set off to find the perfect spot, leaving his wife and children behind in Morpeth.

He finally took over Eaglevlei on December 21 last year - and it was straight in at the deep end. It was harvest time.

"Coming into this and not knowing much about wine has been a challenge in itself," he says. "At times it seemed everything was against me. Getting the place ready, getting used to African time... "

One of the biggest challenges came after harvesting 30 tonnes of Chardonnay grape followed by a nine hour power cut. The grapes were in danger of rotting in the heat as the power cut meant the harvest machinery didn't work.

"We had to haul ourselves out of bed at 2am when the power came back on to crush and de-stem 30 tonnes of grapes," he says.

But there have been many highlights too, such as securing one of South Africa's premier chefs, Annette Le Roux, to run his 120 seater restaurant, which is being built and should be open by November.

But Tony didn't just want a wine estate. As well as the restaurant, he is creating an art gallery, sponsored by an arts foundation he has set up, which sells work created by children from the local townships to tourists.

"Every week now we bring the kids in from the townships who don't really have much hope and there are lots of art teachers and artists who give their time for free," he says.

"The first time the kids came it brought a tear to my eye. When you see those children, who are full optimism and yet have nothing, it's heart wrenching. We put their work in the art gallery and the tourists buy it and 100 per cent of the money goes back to the local community. The first thing we're going to do is buy books for a local school. It's not about charity, it's about giving people hope and aspiration."

Perhaps he gets his altruistic side from his mother, who was an art teacher at a school in an underprivileged area and often gave up her free time to teach children at home. But then Tony is no stranger to adversity either. His mother left the family home when he was 17 and moved in with a violent alcoholic. After years of unhappiness, she took her own life in 2003.

"There's been lots of ups and down and my parents split up when I was 16 which was a very hard time for me," he says candidly.

"I had to fend for myself when my father was out working and my mother had left. It was a lonely time, but it gave me the determination to do things and realise this dream."

There have been many more challenges at Eaglevlei - such as the time he discovered half the bottled stock he had inherited after buying the estate had gone off, at a loss of £50,000 - but his tenacity has seen him through. And it all seemed worth it when he tasted his first bottle of Eaglevlei.

'The first one was a rose that I'd made because my daughter loves pink and I actually called it Beccy's Blush," he says. "When that was bottled and we had the first taste about a month ago it was the most amazing thing. The sun was shining, there was the wonderful pink wine, it was awesome."

This year's harvest has produced 40,000 cases of red, white and rose wines from grapes including Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinotage. His ambition now is to secure a UK distribution deal to attract the tourists. Tony wants to host large scale wine and musical festivals in the future.

"There is amazing potential for this area," he says. "Getting people to come and visit is ultimately what we want."

But he also wants to create a premium wine, which means fiddling with the soil conditions, pouring his love into the estate.

"Although I don't talk to the vines - I'm not at that stage yet," he laughs.

He admits he may not have followed his dream so early were it not for the TV programme. But if anyone can make it happen, Tony can. His passion and commitment shine through, although it's clear he won't be entirely happy until his family are with him in South Africa. For now, he has to be satisfied with frequent trips back to the North-East.

"That's been the hardest thing, leaving the family," he says. "But this is both our dreams, and something we're both fully supportive of and committed to."

He plans to bring his family over when the business is established. It's winter now in South Africa, but instead of the grey skies of Newcastle in winter, there's a biting, crispness to the air and a bright, blue sky. Tony is sitting on a milk crate, enjoying the same view of the Stellenbosch mountains which captured his heart ten years ago.

"This is beautiful, this is what it was all about," he reflects. "I have to keep on pinching myself, because I'm living the dream."

* The Grape Escape starts on Wednesday on the Discovery Real Time Channel at 10pm.