Farming is not for the hasty, get-rich-quickly kind of person. If that’s who you are, settle for banking or tendering for government projects.
Whether you’re producing sheep, cattle or grapes, not much changes on a farm within a year. Good farmers watch their products through all the seasons, year by year, and select the best each year for the future. Then those are watched carefully, and the best of them are set aside for further improvement.
As the years pass the products of the farm grow better and better.
You can’t hurry the seasons and even with modern technology a year takes 365 days to pass.
This is evident at Vriesenhof, where Jan “Boland” Coetzee has been selecting individual vines for many years.
It’s not good enough, he says, simply to decide Merlot, or Cabernet or whatever, will do well in this particular vineyard. Some individual vines thrive while others struggle to survive heat, wind, viruses and mildew.
Not all Merlots are equal.
Jan takes cuttings from those vines that thrive and grafts them onto rootstocks that have also shown their adaptability.
These baby vines have every chance of producing good healthy, disease-resistant grapes.
Even then, it will be a few years before the new vines come into full production.
This feeling of timelessness is what distinguishes between great vineyards and merely good ones. This is why the great vineyards of France are so famous. It’s taken them centuries to get where they are.
It’s no accident that the wines from Vriesenhof score four stars and higher in each year’s Platter Guide.
They’ve earned every one of those red stars by patience and careful, hard work. And time.
And if you’re a buyer of these great wines, don’t rush them. They’re not made for a quick gulp at a disco party. There are hundreds of wines on the market that will serve for that. Vriesenhof wines deserve your full attention.
Try the wonderful ’05 Vriesenhof Kallista blend. It’s a great wine right now, but in three more years it will be stunning.
The ’05 Cabernet takes you back to what a good Cabernet is all about – dry, noble, even a touch austere. There’s nothing juicy or tutti-frutti about it,
But as you sip it, you know you’re tasting greatness.

Photograph: David Biggs, Cabernet, merlot

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Photograph: veronissima.com

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Sometimes it’s good to step back in time, even in the wonderful world of wine.
So many wineries are full of modern technology – great caverns of stainless steel tanks, shiny pumps, miles of gleaming stainless piping, chilling plants, pneumatic presses, air conditioning systems and electronic measuring devices everywhere.
It’s easy to forget it’s really all about soil and grapes and sunshine.
And thousands of years of tradition.
This is why I enjoy a visit to a farm like Annandale, where former Springbok rugby player Hempies du Toit makes his great wines in the slow, old-fashioned way.
Wine has been made at Annandale for more than three centuries, and it seems as though nothing much has changed in all those years.
Annandale’s tasting room is in the original dwelling of the farm – yellowwood beams have turned jet black with age. Festoons of cobwebs act as curtains across the tiny windows. Barrels rest in semi-darkness. Some of the Annandale wines spend up to eight years in barrels, gathering elegance and stability.
“You don’t need fancy equipment to make good wine,” says Hempies, who learned his craft from his father,starting at the age of six or seven. He uses an outdated horizontal wine press to make his wines. “It works just as well as modern presses,” he says, “but I have to stand by it all the time in case it clicks off and needs attention.”
In the cluttered farmyard old winemaking machinery rests in the shade of the great oak trees, a tiny miniature horse strolls casually past and the farm’s huge boerboel dog, Bliksem, sleeps on his back in the sun, revealing his masculinity unashamedly.
Time seems to stand still. Photographs of Springbok ruby players adorn the tasting room walls. A stuffed springbok gathers dust at the door. Hempies proudly opens a bottle of his 2005 Merlot. “This is the wine I made for the Monaco royal wedding,” he says.
He was asked by Charlene’s father to select something special for the wedding, so he chose the 2005, as the couple said that was a significant year for them. The wedding bottles – all magnums — wore a special label and the name Charlbert, a combination of the names of the bride and groom.
It’s delicious – rich with dark chocolate flavour. It spent six years in barrels and at R250 a bottle it’s a real treat. Not often you can share a wine experience with royalty!
I loved his blend called Cavalier. Made from Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, it’s as smooth as velvet, intense and spicy. At R100 a bottle I believe it’s a bargain.
His Cabernet Sauvignon, which won the Grand Prix d’Honneur at Vinexpo, spent three years in barrels and was then aged for a further three in bottles before being released. The 2004 vintage is now on sale at R125 a bottle.
Annandale is just off the Stellenbosch – Somerset West road, near the rather garish field of scarecrows of the Zetlers’ farm stall.
When you visit the cellar, make sure you give yourself plenty of time.
This is not a place where you sip and run.
The atmosphere feeds your soul, just as the wines soothe your thirst.
Say hello to Bliksem from me.

Photograph: D Biggs

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I can’t help wondering whether we’re making wines any better today than we did half a century ago.
I had the privilege of attending a tasting of six Zonnebloem Cabernet Sauvignons dating right back to 1964.
Beautiful wines, all of them.
Maybe I’m being soppy and sentimental, but those gracious old Cabernets have an elegant dignity about them that seems lacking in our brash, fruity reds wines today.
Actually, the 1964 Cab was produced before certification was introduced, so, as presenter Duimpy Baily explained, it could actually contain as little as 30% of Cabernet and the rest was probably made up of Cinsaut and other red varieties.
At that age the wine is still very drinkable – delicate ripe prune flavours with a sweet undertone and a hint of port, even with an alcohol content of less than 12%.
And silky smooth.
How many of today’s offering of juicy fruit-driven wines will still be as elegant and attractive in 50 years’ time, I wonder.
The 1974 Zonnebloem Cabernet was positively frisky, with juicy blackberry and plum flavours, soft and smooth.
Here again, the rules at that stage said there had to be at least 30% of Cabernet in it to be labeled as Cabernet.
Only 30%. And again, Cinsaut played a big role in making it the wine it was.
These truly great wines gave from grapes grown on bush vines, gnarled old vines that were freely attacked by leaf-roll virus, yet they have lasted and lasted.
The 1982 vintage had a lovely cigar-box aroma and flavours of rich fruitcake.
Thirty years down the line it’s in great shape – and it’s alcohol content is a low (by today’s standards) 11,6%.
They were stored in large, old vats, as there was not much new French oak around in those days.
With all our new, virus-free clones, fancy trellising systems, new French and American oak barrels and cellar technology, have we produced anything better?
If so, please open a bottle for me.
I suspect one of the main differences between those great old wines and our present production is that we rely too much on technology today, whereas the old winemakers worked by “gut-feel” and experience. Their taste-buds meant more than their laboratory instruments.
We’re producing chemicals.

Photograph: chuonfood.com

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