Bellevue Estate, as it is known today, was established on the 5th October 1701 when Christoffel Groenewald acquired a farm from the Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel. It became known as houd-den-beck, which means 'keep your mouth shut', and later as hout-den-mond, a slightly more polite phrasing.

In 1851 the name was changed to BELLEVUE - a beautiful view.
In 1861 Bellevue was purchased by Dirk Cloete Morkel, and has been owned by the Morkel family since then. Fourth-generation owner, Dirkie Morkel has been the owner and viticulturalist on the estate since 1979.
Dirkie, his wife Heidi and their four daughters reside in the original Cape Dutch farmhouse dating from 1803, P.K Morkel, the owner of the estate between 1940 and 1966, expanded the original cellar on the estate in 1943. In 1953 he also planted the world's first commercial pinotage vineyard on Bellevue.

In 1959, he was awarded the General Smuts Trophy for the best wine on show at the South Africam National Young Wine Show with Pinotage made from this vineyard (headline news at the time). This old block is still in production, and although the yield is very low it still produces excellent quality fruit. All the wine made in the cellar from the 1940's to the mid 1990's were sold to Stellenbosch Farmer's Winery. During 1998 Bellevue's Cellar was completely renovated to a modern quality driven production cellar.

In 1999 wine made in the cellar was matured and bottled at the estate and sold under the Bellevue label for the first time. We are known for our red wines, and winemaker Wilhelm Kritzinger has been honoured with numerous awards, particularly for Pinotage.