Est. 1693 · Franschhoek
Three centuries of patient craft.
Plaisir was granted to French Huguenot Charles Marais in 1693. Since then, the estate has been tended by a small succession of custodians — each one inheriting the same quiet conviction: that true wine is not made, it is revealed.
The Chronicle
From a Huguenot crossing to a living estate.
1687
A long crossing
A French Huguenot named Charles Marais left everything he knew. Fleeing religious persecution in France, he sailed for the Cape with his family and settled in the Groot Drakenstein Valley, in the shadow of a mountain that would come to define everything that followed.
1693
Le Plessis Marly
Cape Governor Simon van der Stel granted Marais land, which he named after his home town, Le Plessis Marly. That name, worn smooth by three centuries, lives on today as Plaisir. It translates simply as the pleasure of the blackbird.
1705
The vines take root
Charles Marais was one of only a handful of Frenchmen who arrived at the Cape with real winemaking experience. He planted vines. He tended them. By 1705 his son Claude could declare 8,000 vines and six leaguers of wine in the family's tax return. The land was working. The conviction had taken root.
1764
The manor rises
When the manor house was completed, Le Plessis Marly boasted 35,000 vines. That manor house still stands today — a declared heritage site, its gabled Cape Dutch silhouette unchanged against the Simonsberg skyline.
1800s — 1964
The patient century
The farm passed through the Hugo family through the marriage of Rachel Jacoba Marais to Daniel Hugo, and changed hands several more times before being purchased by Stellenbosch Farmers' Winery in 1964. For much of the 20th century the vines gave way to citrus and deciduous fruit. But the granite soils and the mountain breezes were patient. They remembered what they were for.
1993
The cellar reopens
The vineyards were restored and a new cellar opened — its architecture a quiet conversation between the old and the new. Cape Dutch on the outside, precision and passion within.
Today
A deepening, not a reinvention
At Plaisir we are custodians of the land. The history in our soil is honored, not exploited. The land rests. Native fynbos returns. Invasive species are cleared, and water flows again to the roots that belong here. Between the vineyard blocks, eco-corridors run wild. The ecosystem thrives through regenerative agriculture. The grapes deepen. The wines carry both the terroir and the commitment in every bottle. This is the brand we are building. Our community walks with us. Every guest who drinks our wine and walks these paths becomes part of the stewardship — preserving a legacy of care for the generations ahead.
