Cookie Policy
This page lists every cookie this website sets, what each one does, how long it lasts, and how to opt out of the ones that are optional. Cookies that are necessary to run the basket, the checkout and your login cannot be switched off without breaking the shop. Everything else is optional and you can object to it at any time, without losing access to any part of the site.
At a glance
- Three kinds of cookie here: the ones that run the shop, the one that remembers your age check, and optional ones that show us how the site is used and whether an advert led to a sale.
- Necessary cookies cannot be switched off — without them the basket empties and the checkout fails.
- Everything else is optional. You can object at any time, and we will apply it without asking you to justify it. You lose access to nothing.
- We record how pages are used, not who you are. Our design tools capture anonymous mouse movement, scrolling and clicks so we can see where a page confuses people.
- No advertising profiles, no remarketing, no retargeting. We will not follow you around the internet with adverts for our wine or our flour.
- No data brokers and no social media tracking pixels. We do not sell or share your information.
- There is no cookie wall. You are never blocked from the site until you press “accept”.
What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to keep. It lets the site remember something between one page and the next — that you are logged in, or what is in your basket. Some cookies are deleted when you close the browser; others stay for a set period. This policy also covers similar technologies such as local storage.
Necessary cookies
These make the shop work. Without them the basket empties, the checkout fails, and you cannot stay logged in. They are not used to track you and they are not shared with anyone.
| Cookie | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
woocommerce_cart_hash | Tells the shop your basket has changed | Session |
woocommerce_items_in_cart | Tells the shop whether your basket has anything in it | Session |
wp_woocommerce_session_* | Links your browser to your basket and checkout details on our server | 2 days |
woocommerce_recently_viewed | Remembers products you have looked at, to show them again | Session |
wordpress_logged_in_* | Keeps you logged in to your account | Session, or 14 days if you choose “remember me” |
wp-settings-* | Remembers display preferences for logged-in users | 1 year |
wordpress_test_cookie | Checks whether your browser accepts cookies at all | Session |
Age verification cookie
If you verify your age in order to buy wine, our age verification tool stores the result in a signed cookie on your device, so that you are not asked again on every page. It records that a verification passed and when — not your date of birth. If you are logged in, the result is also stored against your account.
This cookie is necessary: without it we cannot show that we verified age before selling alcohol, which the law requires us to do. You can clear it from your account at any time, which means you will be asked to verify again. See our Alcohol Policy.
Analytics cookies — optional
We use two analytics tools, both to answer the same question: is this website any good at its job? They tell us that a page is confusing, that a step in the checkout is losing people, or that nobody scrolls far enough to see something important. They do not tell us who you are, and we have not enabled the features in either tool that would allow it to.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics counts how many people visit, which pages they read, and where they give up.
| Cookie | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
_ga | Distinguishes one visitor from another, using a randomly generated number | 2 years |
_ga_* | Keeps track of the current visit for Google Analytics 4 | 2 years |
We retain analytics information for up to 14 months, after which Google deletes it. We have switched off Google Signals and advertising personalisation, which means this information is not combined with Google’s advertising profiles and is not used to build audiences for adverts.
Microsoft Clarity
Microsoft Clarity shows us how a page is used rather than just how often. It records anonymous interaction with the page — where a cursor moves, how far down you scroll, what you click, and where you go back — and aggregates it into heatmaps. We use it to judge whether a page is doing its job and to decide what to redesign. It is a design tool, not a sales tool.
We should be plain that this is a stronger form of measurement than page counting: Clarity reconstructs a session as a replay. What it does not capture is what you type. Text entered into form fields, including anything you enter at checkout, is masked before it leaves your browser, and we never receive it. Clarity does not receive your name, address, email address, order details or payment details.
| Cookie | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
_clck | Keeps a randomly generated Clarity identifier for this browser, so repeat visits are counted once | 1 year |
_clsk | Joins the pages you view in one visit into a single session | 1 day |
Clarity is operated by Microsoft, and the information is processed outside South Africa under Microsoft’s own terms and retention schedule. Microsoft is a processor acting on our instructions. We have not enabled Clarity’s advertising integration, so nothing collected here is passed to Microsoft’s advertising systems or used to target you. Our Clarity and Google Analytics accounts are linked to each other so that the two views of the same visit can be read together — that link is between our own analytics accounts and adds no advertising use. See our Privacy Policy for what section 72 of POPIA requires us to tell you about processing outside the country.
Conversion measurement cookies — optional
Where we advertise our products, we need to know whether an advert actually led to a sale — otherwise we are paying for advertising blind. This is measurement of an advert we already paid for. It is not profiling of you, and it is not used to target you with further adverts.
| Cookie | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
_gcl_au | Records that you arrived from a Google advert, so that a later purchase can be attributed to it | 90 days |
We are being deliberately plain about this one, because _gcl_au is set by Google’s advertising system and you may see it described elsewhere as an advertising cookie. On this site it is used for conversion measurement only. We have not enabled remarketing, audience building or advertising personalisation, and we do not upload customer lists to Google.
Cookies set when you pay
When you pay, you are taken to Payfast to enter your card details. Payfast sets its own cookies on its own pages, for security and fraud prevention, under its own privacy policy. We do not control them and we never receive your card details.
Why the optional cookies are allowed to run
We rely on the legitimate interest ground in section 11(1)(f) of POPIA. Running a shop we cannot measure means guessing at what our customers need, and the information involved is about pages rather than people. Because that is the ground we rely on, section 11(3) gives you a right to object — set out below — and we have deliberately kept the processing to what a design decision actually requires.
Your choices
Object, and we stop. Section 11(3) of POPIA gives you the right to object to processing we base on legitimate interest, which includes both analytics tools above. Write to our Information Officer, Alette de Beer, at alette@lowerland.co.za, or use our Data Request page. You do not need to give a reason, we will not ask you to justify it, and nothing is withheld from you as a result.
In your browser. Every major browser lets you block or delete cookies, in its privacy or security settings, and this is the fastest way to stop the optional ones immediately. Blocking necessary cookies will stop the basket and checkout from working.
Through Google. Google publishes a browser add-on that opts you out of Google Analytics on every site, not only this one.
Through Microsoft. Clarity honours the “do not track” setting your browser sends, and Microsoft’s privacy dashboard lets you manage what it holds about you.
Why we do not ask you to accept cookies before you can enter
You may be used to a banner that blocks a website until you press “accept”. That comes from European law, which does not apply to a South African shop selling to South African customers. POPIA requires us to tell you what we collect and to let you object — which is what this page and the objection route above do. It does not require us to hold the site hostage until you click something. We think you would rather read about the farm.
Changes
If we add a cookie, we add it to this page. If we ever changed our position on remarketing, we would say so here and in our Terms of Use before anything changed.
This page was last revised on 19 July 2026.
Questions
Write to our Information Officer, Alette de Beer, at alette@lowerland.co.za. Our full Privacy Policy explains everything else we do with personal information.