Morgenster
Giulio Bertrand arrived in South Africa as a textile merchant from Italy, the country of his birth. He fell in love with the country, and so when the time came to sell his business, he decided to keep his South African investments there, and swapped the sheep he had brought from Australia which produced the wool from which he wove his cloth, with vines from France and olive trees from Italy. He then bought the beautiful and historic estate of Morgenster to plant them on. The rolling hills of Somerset West, 44kms east of Cape Town and overlooking False Bay, are ideal for producing a Bordeaux style of wine and an Italian style of oil, and both are very highly regarded; the oil is consistently considered to be one of the best in the world by the authoritative Flos Olei Guide.
Giulio died in 2018, but his philosophy of "where there is quality there is no compromise" lives on with his daughters, Alessandra and Frederica, who now run the estate.