L'Equinox Wines (MC Stander)

Swartland, South Africa

MC Stander's early life is far removed from the world of wine. Born in Namibia, his family left when he was 3 years old and settled in Still Bay, a coastal town 3 hours east of Cape Town in South Africa.

It was here that he grew up, living a fairly normal teenage life close to the beach. At this stage his only exposure to wine was the bag-in-box wine his mum used to drink at home, and not much more. From the agricultural side though, he did develop an early interest in working with the land from his grandparents who lived on a farm a couple of hours further east where he spent a lot of time as a kid.

He initially wanted to be a doctor, but after taking a gap year he decided instead to enroll in a viticulture and enology degree at the University of Stellenbosch, a decision he has a hard time explaining. "I don't know what it was, but something inside was saying this is what I needed to do, even though I had no prior knowledge or experience."

Following his degree he did one harvest at a large coop, an experience where he learned how not to make wine. "I remember dumping bags of chemicals and bags of wood chips into tanks, and from this experience I knew that was precisely not how I wanted to work." He worked for a couple more estates before an influential 3 years at Joostenberg, where he was particularly inspired by seeing the changes in the soil as the organic conversion was ongoing. It was also here that he learned to appreciate where his food comes from, how it is grown, and understand the importance of provenance.

In 2015 MC arrived in the Swartland and was quickly immersed in the thriving natural wine scene that was gaining a lot of interest locally. He worked for a couple of projects including a few years with Callie Louw at Porceleinberg whom he helped plant 35 hectares of organically farmed vineyards over the years. Slowly the seeds were being planted for his own project to begin.

In 2018 he quit his job and started L'Equinox Wines. He had already forged some great relationships with local organic and biodynamic growers so finding fruit was fairly straightforward. His first vintage was 2019, and was made in Jurgen Gouw's cellar (Intellego Wines), which happened to be Tom Lubbe's old cellar, and which MC has now recently taken over. Back then he made one barrel of each wine - whilst the production today is still small, through the help of an international and local demand he has been able to expand his project gradually over the past few years.

The wines are of course made to reflect the personalities of each grower and of each site, working with a less-is-more approach and letting the grapes do their work naturally. Today he is still primarily négoce, though he is farming a few of the plots that he buys the grapes from.