While many of us are settling into another week, Alex Milner is somewhere in rural France.
Having just celebrated the wedding of a French intern in the tiny Ardèche hamlet of Rimouren, he’s preparing for his next adventure: a 1,000-kilometre cycling journey across the French Alps. Armed with just 2.3kg of luggage, an old route map once used by his father in the 1990s and an appetite for mountain passes, Alex is about to tackle 24,000 metres of climbing in nine days.
Before the adventure begins, however, there has naturally been plenty of wine. One bottle in particular caught his attention: Cuvée Arthur, a wonderfully honest Syrah-Cinsault from the Ardèche. It’s exactly the sort of wine Alex has spent his career championing—wines of heritage, restraint and authenticity that quietly speak of place.
It’s fitting then that, while Alex is immersed in one of France’s great rural wine regions, we’re delighted to introduce his most personal wine yet.
Clairette Blanche, Chenin Blanc, Western Cape
94 Points – Greg Sherwood MW
“This new white blend from Alex Milner doubles the Natte Valleij white range from one to two wines. An impressively characterful creation, the aromatics on this Clairette Blanche – Chenin Blanc blend boast notes of leafy honeysuckle, white blossoms, dry hay, dusty summer bushveld over hints of Granite, sea breeze salinity, white pear and yellow apple fruits. The delicate sapidity is more pronounced on the palate that’s glycerol and fleshy, deliciously tangy and bright with sour yellow plums, peach and nectarine fruits, displayed with impressive concentration married to a spicy sweet herbal component and a pithy white citrus nuance on the vibrant saline finish. This has all the attention to detail you’d expect from Alex and Natte Valleij. Drink now and over the next 5 to 8 years.” – Greg Sherwood MW.
A Family That Helped Shape Cape Wine
The inspiration behind Kaapse Ode lies with Alex’s wife, Sumari, whose family farmed beneath the Witzenberg Mountains in Tulbagh for generations, on the farm Montpellier.
Their contribution to South African wine is remarkable.
Working alongside pioneers such as Dr Abraham Perold, Dr C.G. Niehaus and Dr Karl Werner, they helped produce South Africa’s first commercially cold-fermented white wine, crafted one of the country’s earliest white wines to receive the old “Superior” classification, and counted two KWV chairmen among their family lineage.
Kaapse Ode isn’t an attempt to recreate those wines.
Instead, it’s Alex’s heartfelt interpretation of what an old-school Cape white could be today, respecting tradition while embracing the precision and freshness of modern South African winemaking.
Why We Love It
Maiden release
Just 800 bottles produced
Clairette Blanche & Chenin Blanc
Inspired by generations of Cape winemaking
94 Points – Greg Sherwood MW
A future Cape classic from Natte Valleij
Some wines celebrate a vintage.
Others begin a legacy.
Kaapse Ode 2025 is the first chapter in a wine that Alex Milner intends to evolve over time, with Cape Riesling (Crouchen Blanc) already planned for future vintages.
With just 800 bottles produced worldwide, this inaugural release is a rare opportunity to experience the beginning of that journey. We’re delighted to have secured a sizeable fraction of this tiny maiden release for Museum Wines, but once it’s gone, the story moves on to the next vintage.
