SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hallo, Marek.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

In goedemiddag.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Goedemiddag, Marek. We start in Dutch.

unknown 0:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

But we go over to English, you know, because.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

We have a guest, a special guest.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

We have a special guest. That's very special. Yeah, from South Africa. Oh, and who is that look at? The famous Richard Kershaw. Yes. One of the top producers of the television.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Ja, he came to Holland.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

We start in Dutch and then we don't. Dit is de elfde podcast, of weer?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Ja, zeker het rijtje vult zich langzaam en zeker wel aan.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

En ik heb daar straks gekeken naar onze luistercijfers en zo. Ja, dat is echt niet te geloven, man.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Nee, toch wordt het best veel beluisterd. Ja, heel veel. En als je kijkt naar hoeveel uren.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Zo, uren luisteren.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

We zijn lang van stof voor de mensen die het niet weten.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

We zijn altijd lang van stof, ja, dat klopt. We proberen het in een uur te stoppen. Het was één keer gelukt. Ja, één keer voor mij. Één keer. En voor de rest is het allemaal anderhalf tot twee uur. Maar beter onderhoudend en leuk, lang. Dan kort en saai.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Zeker waar. Daarom. Zeker. Daar gaan we ook vol voor zetten.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Ja, precies. De elfde podcast alweer. En daar straks, de twaalfde, gaan we het hebben over jouw hobby.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Tsjechische wijnen.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Tsjechische wijnen. Jij bent een halve Tshek. En dan gaan we een persie doen over Tshische wijnen. En dan hebben we ook nog Jobte zwart. Die gaan we in november doen. En we gaan Wijngaatsberg doen. Met Jill Nijs hebben we nog een lijntje liggen. En Zoldering. Met Piemonte.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

En dan hebben we nog een keer ook nog Elsas.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Ja, Elsas hebben we ook nog. Dus we hebben dit jaar. Dit jaar zitten we al helemaal vol gepland.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Dus genoeg te luisteren.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Genoeg te luisteren, genoeg te doen.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Ja, zeker.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

We start over in English now? Richard, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Welcome. Great, welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Thank you. Very nice to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Oké, uh, well, tell who is Richard? Tell us.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Well, that's a great question, and I can't answer that. No. No, I'm basically a winemaker based in South Africa. I'm originally not from South Africa. I've been there 27 years, originally from England, and I started off life as a chef and decided to uh get into involved with wine through the medium of chefing and and and samalia, and then basically worked in a shop before deciding that I need to Okay. But you were basically a chef.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, well, where where were you born in in the UK?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I was born in Sheffield, so right in the Sheffield.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Okay. Okay, you went to school over there and so on and so on. And then and then you turned out to be a chef?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, I uh I wasn't great at school. I got expelled, so I had to go to a special school for difficult children. And that ended up me being in a in an environment where I ended up doing not very well. And I bec thought becoming a chef that seemed like a use of my skills. But then, but you the the wine virus, when did it attack you? It attacked me during the cooking because when I was actually learning how to be a chef, you have to become a waiter, and you had to become what they were called a Gyridon waiter, that ability to serve food in front of the customers, uh, which was very, very sort of important in big hotels. And you had to know a little bit about wine, otherwise you wouldn't survive.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Okay. And then you thought, hey, wine, that's interesting. And then it goes further and further and further, and then oh gee, and then you're lost.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

You are, and the lost happens very quickly, because you start off learning a little bit about it at the Samelia School, and then suddenly you're doing courses through the WCT. And before you know it, I was actually doing the diploma in my early 20s. Okay. And at that point I thought I better actually go and run a run a wine shop, wine shop, or work in a wine shop.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

You worked in a wine shop in Sheffield.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

No, in London. I did my chef's course outside London, just in a little place called Slough, which is the most um dreadful place, but it was a good chef, it was a good school for chefing. Okay. Um so I did that, and then I ended up working in London for uh the this uh wine uh selling wines, shall I say?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And at what age was that, more or less? I was about twenty-one. Twenty-one. Yeah. So you were affected by the wine stand, and it goes further and further. Yes. And then you spread out your wings because you were in California, Chile, Bordeaux, Hungary, and Germany.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Exactly. And what I did is actually before I got to that point, which I I actually passed my diploma when I was 23, 22, 23, and I ended up deciding I think I want to do the Master of Wine. And I was very young and angry and outspoken. And of course, when you're that age, everybody else is wrong, and you're right. And I actually had a go at the exam in 1995, so I was only 25 years old. I would have been the youngest if I'd passed. Oh, well. But my anxious of wine on a 25th of the I would have I would have been young, but I didn't pass the exam. I ended up uh doing well, but not enough to pass the whole exam. And then I thought, well, actually, I'm enjoying selling wines, but I actually want to go make the wine because that's the bit that I really look look it looked the most interesting. And that's when I that's when I started do my tour um of the very.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Why did you do in that tour? Because you went all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

I did. So what I did to start with is I wanted to I started with my my actually for my martial wine research project, I was actually doing something on the the the looking at different sustainable farmings. And bearing in mind this is 95, it wasn't a big thing. Organics and biodynamics was a very small world in those days. Yeah, but I was quite into it. Even in my flat in London, I would get find organic places that would be delivered to my door. It was I was quite ahead of the game, in fact, but at the time I was fascinated by the ability to be more sustainable. So my project was on the difference between sustainable, organic, and biodynamic. And I went around Europe to start with, and then the day I got back from Europe, I went straight to California, interviewed the guys at Fetzer, and I moved around until I got to the point that actually I thought this is so cool, I must actually go make wine. I came back, went to my stepsister's um wedding, and then went immediately straight back to California to do harvest. And I I I did that until uh about November time. I came back and I at that stage I had the opportunity to work. Um uh well, I got a contract, not a contract, a I got the the um I got in touch with Jacques Laton, who was helping Vignar San Pedro and Chile. Okay um I'd actually spoken to a very famous guy called Richard Smart, who was a big viticulturalist at the time. Um he's older now, but he was he was very much cutting edge. He wrote a thing called The Sunlight Into Wine, it was a very well-known book at the time, very much for master of wine students to learn all the different canopy managements. And then I um he tell told me to go to Chile, and I ended up getting that opportunity to work in Chile at Vigne-Saint Pedro with Jacques Latin, who was a consultant, and obviously the the winery. I worked there for about six months, during which time Jacques had some uh opportunities, or not opportunities, but he gave me some ideas for Bordeaux, and I actually got a got a position um with Canal Lagafillier for the harvesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Canal Legafel, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Saint Emilia Saint Emilion. But I actually had something else in store because I'd rented my flat in London out. Um I actually thought, why don't I um just go straight to straight there in May, June? And I'd met this gorgeous South African girl, and I said, Well, let's just go to France straight away. I'll go get a job somewhere. I went to walk in, work in uh Bly. I worked with a uh Danish chap called Holger who taught helped teach me French. So quite entertaining. And then this friend of mine rang me up during the period and said, Listen, why don't we write a book about the Petit Chateau of France? And we'll take some of my ideas of biodynamic and organic and we'll ask them. So I ended up doing that for nine months. In between, I only did the harvest for four weeks. So we just wrote this book, and Monty Walden was the writer. He's actually become quite well known as a biodynamic specialist. He's written several books on it, and we basically spent nine months wandering uh France, just writing and and and understanding what the petit chateau were and being thrown out of chateau as we went, which was quite cool. Um well it wasn't cool, but it was just that that we were probably asking the right questions, that's why they weren't so happy to see us.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Okay, and but I always I also see Germany.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yes, um, so there I got the opportunity from a guy called Stefan Schmitzer, from uh he sorry, sorry, my apologies. No, from uh Stefan Dorst. He was working with Weingert Becker and he had an opportunity to work with uh Siguris. Stefan Dorst? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I know this guy. Ah because I imported the wine from Becker around uh uh there was the year 1999, vintage year. Yes, so it was in 2002 or something.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Okay, so this was now in uh 197. Um so I had worked uh so I got this contact through Stefan was a friend of Monty's. He he even though he worked for Vine Gott Becker, he had a project with Sigurist, and they themselves couldn't, they they I I went to go work there for a little bit, but I didn't actually work there until they said, listen, there's another farm down the road. It's in a um it's it's uh it's a small fall and it's not a it's not a high quality farm, but they have lost sadly lost their mother. Uh the mother died sadly, and the sister died in a car accident, and and the father is uh had a breakdown. So the son is only 21, and I was at the time 26, and he said, Do you want to help them out? It's gonna be a really good experience because there's nobody really, you'll have to make all the wine, you'll have to help them because the the guy will be in the vineyards. They uh it's not high quality, so you can, you know, even if you make mistakes, it won't be a problem.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

You will always improve.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

You will always improve. So actually, I I thought I'll I'll do that because it was an opportunity, having worked in Bordeaux and Chile and uh California to actually apply some of those skills that I'd learned. So I worked at this place, so he was called Stefan Smith, so sorry. And it was a place called Weinger Herrenhof, it's in Landau, now the Southern Falls. So they used they they had apples and they had grapes, and basically we did we did grapes, and then when we finished the grapes, we did apples, and they picked, and I sat in the winery and I just made all the wine. Okay, and it was fabulous. It was an experience that I will never forget because I could do what I wanted. I worked with two Polish guys and uh we did stuff in the it was just magical. Um, a a real small classic um old old winery doing its thing, you know, every night on the weekends we had people coming in and buses and we would entertain them and and we would just be, you know, the the the the the father was a hard worker and the son even more so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Okay. So you could that's everything that you learned uh over the those years.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, I learned how to just do can take control of making the wine myself, you know, and it was my responsibility if the if it wasn't happening. Very nice opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, very interesting, but uh we miss one thing. It's wine. So we can we start with for the first uh the first one. Yeah, uh we start uh we do the wines all over and then you talk and and we we of course try the wines. So we're starting with your clonal selection, right? Chardonnay. Uh I just tasted and made a little reel reel with it. Um I have it here. Um you made you make it from different clones.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

I do, yes. Um I do. I make it from uh about four or five Dijon clones, and um those clones are basically I um I'm just thinking, do you want me to explain it the whole thing? Because I'm thinking uh that I would probably need to give a background as to why I'm doing that in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Oh then then we should no we wait with that because we we we we do that when you come to South Africa, right? You start you that was Germany, okay, and there wasn't 1997, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yes, 97. Yeah, and then I had an opportunity just very quickly to work in Hungary, and uh that unfortunately was very short because the harvest was um unfortunately very delayed. So it wasn't a great harvest in 98. So I ended up only staying there for a month, and then I ended up just taking myself back and then straight to South Africa. My wife uh has had a she had a visa for two years and that had now finished. Is she South African? She is South African, she she yeah, yeah, she's so Afrikaans. Um and she now uh well she wasn't my wife, but she was at that point my girlfriend. So I went over back to to South Africa. Well, I didn't mention, sorry, one short small point I didn't mention was when I went to Chile, I didn't go directly to Chile. I had the opportunity to get one of these round-the-world tickets. So I actually spent time in South Africa for four weeks, Argentina for four weeks, Chile for five months, and then came back via New York to kind of extend the around the world. And during the time I was in South Africa, that's when I met her. Um, and it gave me the opportunity to understand and see South Africa, even though that wasn't my intention, it was a really good opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, because I see then all these countries, and you end up in South African. I already had the idea this guy's in love. Yeah. There must be a woman involved. Exactly that. Exactly that. There always is. So uh otherwise you would have stayed, you have stayed in in Germany. I would do that to make proper wrestling. Exactly. No, but you ended up in 1999 in South Africa.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yes, I started in actually I ended up there at the late in late 98, starting. I actually started work in January in 1999, and in fact, I had the opportunity to work with Mike Dobrovich, who was a well-known winemaker. And the only reason I got the job uh was when I went for the interview just before I arrived, you know, I got off the plane, I stayed with my girlfriend for a week or two. I went to the winery before Christmas started, and I I I said, Oh, can I get I'd love to work for you? Because when I came in it uh two years previously, I thought this was a really good winery, Muldebosch. And Mike said to me, Well, Muldebosch.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, it was Mulderbosch. Okay, okay, making great Sauvignon Blanc.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Very good. And I said to Mike that this you you made really, really good survivon. I would love to uh come work for you. And he just told me, Well, actually, we've already got somebody. You're you're you're you know, and I said, Listen, I'm standing right here. Yeah, he said, okay, we do an interview quickly. So he said, Okay, uh, do you pay pool? Um, you know, the the the pool game. And I said, Yeah, I'm actually quite good at it. That's one thing I do. He says, That's great, that's a sign of misspent youth. So he says, You've got the job.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Okay, so that was in 1999. Then, but then um you worked there, and then I see uh you started your own uh in 2012, that is 13 years. Okay, but meanwhile you were a master of wine.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yes, so um there was a little bit of other things I I skip a little bit because it's complicated. But basically, I worked there for three years as the assistant winemaker and uh at Muldebosh. At Muldebush. Okay. Then I actually worked in PAL and um I had a uh for 18 months in a place called Nelson's Creek, which we actually during the time renamed Nelson Estate, and then I got the opportunity to work for Carnu. Now Muldebosch and Carnu were the same owners. So Mike rang me up and said, The guy's left, so would you be interested? So I got I got the position at Carnu, then Mike himself left, um, and I took over the position of Carnu and Muldebush, working both the farms together as a kind of group winemaker, but that was already in 2008. In the meantime, in 2004-5, I then looked at the opportunity to do the Master of Wine and I started it in 2006. Then when I'd I then carried on doing the Master of Wine, and in 2011, when I passed it, I then decided I want to leave to start my own project. I was thinking about it at the time, yeah, so it gave me the opportunity and springboard to start my own project.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Okay. And you started in 2012 with your brother. Yes. Okay. Shall we taste the wine? Yes. Yeah. Because here I I already made a reel with it, and it's a delicious. I like your wines a lot. Um it's just that buttery flavours and so on. I I compare it a little bit. I I I don't know if you like that with Burgundy, of course, because I I'm I'm a Burgundy guy. Okay. I worked for five years in Burgundy. Ah, that's true. I command Hubert Lamy in Saint Robert. Yes, okay, Hubert Lamy, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Not not all five years, no. During holidays, and I was a student, no money. Yes. Uh I was dedicated to wines, of course, like you. And so I needed money, and then I worked at the at the at the Hubert Lamy, and he paid me off in wines.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Ah, the the dopp system. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly that. It's it's illegal in South Africa, but completely legal in Burgundy.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, I know, I know it's very illegal in Burgundy. But uh, and that and so I my I I know yeah, well, I I I'm an I'm a Burgundy guy. Yeah. So when I taste your wine, it for me it's a bit of buttery flavours, it's sort of I compare it a little bit with Merceau. And when you look at the at the coat of bones, and it's Pulingiche Merceau, Eddie 3. But this is more the buttery thing from Merceau. Don't you don't you agree?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Or I'm I think I would actually interestingly say if I was putting it as Merceau, I think it's the clay soils that would have the richness in the mid pallet that gives you that Merceau-like character, that little bit more breadth. Um, and there is a sense of that in this wine. Although the 21 to me has that little bit more tension from the Sasidic, slightly higher acidity, yeah. And that tension is just giving actually an argument that it could be something outside of Mersau. But yeah, I see what you're saying. Very much that kind of um sort of amalgam of of both characters, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Okay, yeah, good. Going further with your we were in 2012. You started with your winery, yes. But um, I can't imagine starting up a winery for yourself. Uh do you have an uncle or so with who's a millionaire? Do you know somebody who has lots of money?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

So actually, this is the interesting part. So basically, um the opportunity to start a wine winery is you will need to have a very wealthy uncle or you need a partner. So, what I did is I didn't I decided I wasn't going to do that. I decided I would become a virtual winery and have a wine entity. So effectively, I don't need a winery because I can I can basically make the wine in in into somebody else's cellar, and I can also buy the grapes in. So the business model was very much to buy the grapes in that I was keen to buy and then make them in a in a winery which I could then use and spend my money that I had earned that that I'd saved into the marketing, the the the time to spend it overseas. So that was actually my thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

And it's important to to bear- But you have to buy juice or something, or grapes? Do you buy grapes or juice?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

I grape no no no grapes, absolutely. In those days. No, no, always grapes. You always have to buy the grapes because I need to know which direction the grape's gonna go into with the juice. Um there was a uh how can I put it? Uh it's a podcast, so I have to be, I suppose, a little careful. But there was a I got a uh there was a package given to me because of there were some issues at Mulderbosch and uh it involved law a legal, it was a legal issue. And the legal issue um came out in my favour, and that actually meant that I got a quite a nice um sort of package of salary, a six month forward deal, and I used that to actually start the business.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Um I also took out a little bit of an extra mortgage on a house I had in Sunabosch, and between the two, we managed to do the first year. Yeah. Um you needed, I bought 20 barrels, um, I think I had 10 new barrels, and then I I bought 10 tons of grapes. So I knew I had to start with some sort of amount, but it was tough, of course. Yeah, and I didn't get a salary, of course, either for the first year.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Okay, and now uh well you don't want to say it's okay for me, but what do you pay for a ton of grapes of Chardonnay grapes?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Right. So um this is a great question, and um it's gonna lead into other questions, um, fortunately. So in 2012, when I started, I paid 7,000 Rand a ton.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

7,000?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Random Rand, yeah. So about 350, 350 euros a ton.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

In the in 350 euros for a thousand kilos. Yes. Okay, that is uh 35 cents per litre. Yeah. Okay, that's cheap. In in 2012.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other times. Yeah, yeah, okay. Very, very good value. But uh I don't pay that now, no. No. And you pay more, I think. I pay about 1,500 euros.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah. So the difference there is is quite a lot. And that that's that's a side story, which we can talk about as well. But um I whatever you uh yeah. There's a lot of different stories that go on, but I can give you why that's the reason.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you then and then you you you bought the grapes, yeah, you press them yourself, or yeah, you hired something uh in a in a in where did you where did you go do your cellar work?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Okay, so what I started with is the first year in 2012, I started with a small seller in in Elgin. Uh, it's called Valley Green. Yeah, uh, it was a custom crush cellar, they had about five different um people doing grapes, and I worked there. So basically, I went to get I had a uh a bucky, uh a pickup truck, I I um I got a trailer and I basically went to pick the grapes up, brought them in, put them into the press, and just did my thing. Yeah, and I took 10 tons of Chardonnay and 10 tons of syrup. That's how we started. Yeah, yeah. Um and I took from different blocks and then basically and I filled the barrels and I did everything myself. Obviously, it was the first year, so that was my opportunity. I couldn't afford to employ anything.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, of course. And did you uh were you from the the start all keen on on the uh clonal selections already?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yes, so absolutely, and importantly, just to just to give a little bit of introduction to this um I was making a muldabosh muldebosch fermented a barrel fermented Chardonnay, and I was Fascinated that on one of the blocks called the filter block, we had two clones, C195 and C196. And when we picked them at different stages, despite the similar Tawa, they were basically different in barrel. And I was interested as to why they manifest certain characters that were different and unique, that to me was fascinating. And were there differences in the type of clones? So I did a lot of research at that point, but having bearing in mind I was still doing my master of wine, and I found myself thinking that perhaps Dijon clones would be better than the local clones. Sometimes those local ones, all the California ones, have that little bit of sweetness on the back pellet. So to me, those um Dijon clones had a bit more dryness. But the issue I had with some of the Chardonnays in Salambosch, especially in the middle to north, is they lack acidity. So you are having to moderate that acidity, ameliorate it slightly, and you're working a little bit against the sort of ripening levels because it's it's something that will ripen, but it often can make these broader uh stars of wine. So I was actually very keen to look at Elgin because Elgin was just the cooler climate. So it had the opportunity to retain the acidity that I was looking for and pick it at the time.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

But of course, Elgin is the coolest uh uh area in South Africa because of the sea, uh the Atlantic, is the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean? No, it's the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic Ocean, the wind so and it's on altitude high.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yes, so you've got that, you've got a several combinations, which is really important as to how the climate difference differs. You're you're right, it has altitude three to five hundred and fifty meters above sea level. It has the proximity to sea nine nine kilometres or six to nine kilometers up to about twenty kilometers. Not not that I take from that far back, but most of ours between nine and fifteen kilometers. Okay. And we have the uh differing elevations that have a correspondence with the way that the southeaster um wind works. Why that's important is that the southeast or our ameliant wind that blows into Gordon's Bay and Somerset West and through into Selenbosch tends to create a um a slightly cooling effect. It's not an ameliant wind in the sense that it does more than cool it a little bit because it's not a cold wind. But what it does is it removes uh humidity and therefore by default gives you uh more disease, less disease. Less disease, yeah, yeah. However, in Elgin, because we are in an elevated plateau, a bowl-shaped, so effectively it's it's like this, but up high, you are having mountains surrounding you. The front skirts, about 500 meters above sea level, and as you move around, it goes up until about 1,500 meters. At that point, when the southeaster blows in, you get cloud because it banks up like that. Yeah, of course. So if you were on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Actually, a little bit like in California.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Uh little bit like that, but that's obviously a fog-based thing. So therefore it's burning off. But here the cloud can actually stay for the whole day, if not several days. Yeah. And the important thing is that backing up of the cloud is pushing against the mountain, which means that if your pr if your pressure is very high and the wind is strong, it will actually create clouds to form form rain. So whilst the southeaster blows, we will get a lid. So if you actually are on this side of the mountain, you can look up, it's just a lid of clouds like that. So you can go up over the pass, up over the pass, and on the other side, it's just this lid. It's just like one thing. And it's very similar to the table mountains tablecloth they talk about. That that is it's the same effect happening. Okay. Why that is important is it means Elgin basically receives a lot less direct sunlight. The UV light is filtered out through the medium of cloud, and there is lot less solar radiation, and that has a massive effect. Notwithstanding, because it's banking up with a cloud, you actually get a lot more moisture. So ultimately, the relative humidity in Elgin is between 65 and 75. Uh, if anything, it's going towards 75 with climate change. But also, we're getting a little bit more rainfall as well. And that's important because ultimately South Africa dry. South Africa is quite dry. And exactly. So basically, in your Selenbosch region, you're getting 550 mil millimeters. Yes. In in uh Swatland about 275, in our region about 1,050. Oh, and that's important because if you compare that to many major cities in uh Europe or or America, we have higher rainfall than Seattle, than Paris, um, not quite as much as Rotterdam at 1200 mils, but we get a lot of we get a lot of rain.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

In Rotterdam, we don't have grapes. But actually, you could make also Riesling over there when I hear this.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

You can. And in fact, we do actually consult for five different farms, and one of them we make some Riesling for them. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. You can do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Rip the Chardonnay out and Riesling. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

No, no, no, Riesling's issue is that it takes a long time to ripen. So it's one of the last things we pick. So ironically enough, it's uh a challenge, but it works well. Um, and the problem we have is that because of our rainfall, the rain starts coming in towards uh the equinox about the middle of uh March, and that's the problem when you're picking anything after that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Um, you'll pick in March, April.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah. Yeah. So well with the Chardonnay and and Pinot, we're picking from the end of February, and that's the the optimal time because it's starting to obviously towards the end of summer, but we we can often pick right through until the end of March. The Syrah and Rieslings and stuff, they get picked towards the end of March into April, and that's problematical because you once have it once you have the rainfalls, you you you never really get rid of it. So when we tie taste the syrura later, you'll you'll hear about the fact that it is a problem um climatically.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Okay, good. 2012, you started it as an entity, but when I visited you uh about five years ago or something, uh Jan, we talked about her, showed me also some some drawings. You are what you are creating your own wine cellar and so on.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Um yes, uh we were at the time, and I have a piece of land that I bought in 2006. Um now I don't talk a lot about it, but basically I did buy land about 40 hectares in uh uh 40. 4T. Yeah. 40 hectares. Yeah, okay. So I bought that in and it's actually the middle of Elkin. Um it's next to it's part of a larger farm. Um it it it uh the farm's name is Spionkop, but it's not what I'm there is a farm that's called itself Spionkop, but in fact it was a large 236 hectare property split into five farms. Um I bought one of them, and uh that actually a Belgian guy couldn't bought one of the other ones, and that's called he's called himself Spionkop, but but that's basically part of that farm. And so I I bought that in 2006 with the idea of probably building a cellar. But as time has progressed, I haven't felt that was necessarily the right thing to do. I think one of the biggest things with winemaking, and I think it is a really important factor, is if you are selling and making wine, if you're making really good wine and you're selling it and and whatever, sometimes building a cellar or growing grapes can be a vanity project, which, as you say, you need that rich uncle to come and help you out. And I've always felt I don't want to be beholden to a partner to do that. And my concern with building a seller is that I would then have to run this cellar and the acute accompanying problems that happens and incurs, not necessarily with the seller itself, but all the other problems that that actually it would be easier for me not to do that.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

You don't have time for it. No, no, you you prefer to make wines.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I prefer to make wine and I have a lot of different hats. Um, I'm not just a winemaker, I do a lot of other things as well. Um, and that means that I want to make sure I can do those things as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Okay. Yeah. So it did happen yet. No, no. Not yet. Will will it ever happen?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Um, I'm not sure. Okay. I will leave the answer open on that.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

But oh but when you can hire when you could that combination with other growers, or there are more wineries who are doing that. Yes. I know more people work like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Exactly that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

The grapes, you you you don't have your own white yards, you buy in grapes.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

That's right. So we buy in from a number of farms, and in fact, sort of to to to give a little bit more elucidation to the shard name we've got in front of us, the CY uh sorry, the different clones that I was interested in are grown around Elgin, and I take from about 11 different parcels.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

But the the people where you buy from were they keen on those clones, or did you tell them to do that?

SPEAKER_00 30:18

So actually that it's two things. So when I started, obviously they they had those clones because otherwise I couldn't get those.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

But they had those clones by accident then.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

No, some of those no, those clones were quite popular. It's just that they weren't so they were popular, but not necessarily super popular. And importantly in Elgin, a lot of the people who had consulted going into the region knew that these clones would do very well. So it wasn't by chance I went to Elgin just because of that. I went because I knew there was also the clonal material that I could source from. Yeah. Um, so that that was important. Subsequently, people who have planted clones after that have used those clones directly. And if I've worked with growers or friends of mine, they have also planted so so that I have the chance to.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

And did you advise them also? So you have to do D clones. I did, yes. You buy it in and I know in Dijon or in the and there's an uh somebody who breeds those planting material.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yes. So the planting material wasn't no, I I didn't get involved in any of that. But when when somebody asked me about what we should plant, then I would suggest some ideas, and they would then go out and buy those clones to be planted.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Because and and and uh the European minds, for everybody thinks you have a domain, you have a wine or whatever. So you have uh your own uh producing facility, and around that you have your wine yards. Yes. That's the European style. But when I explained that for for instance in the US of A, you they you have grape growers who sell their grapes to winemakers. Yes, there's a totally different approach.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

It is. You could allow I suppose the closest would be like a negotiant. That would be your s similar thing, where the negotiant himself or herself doesn't own the vines. So that would be the closest equivalent. The difference being legociant wine is often seen as lesser, but in this particular case it's more. Yeah. But that's actually interesting, it's a very interesting part of the question because in a way we've been brought up, not just in in Europe, but in in the New World, that an estate-domained bottle tends to be a better wine. But the fact is it doesn't necessarily have to be because maybe the estate may grow and make their own wine, but it doesn't mean to say their grapes are that well are good. They might even be the wrong grapes.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

I know, uh, I don't know. I know wines from the California, for instance, uh, Kisler and so on, uh make great, great, great wines, but they buy in grapes from uh they have a source and they make contracts for 10 years or whatever, and these people are keen to make great grapes. That's what they do. Like we make in the Netherlands, we make tomatoes or strawberries or something, and they make grapes for wine production. Yes. And when you make uh uh uh when you have a good reputation, in my view, for making good grapes, you can hire up the price a little bit. Is that possible or is it all no?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Uh it's very possible, and it it will fit neatly into a point that I mentioned earlier about the prices when you asked me. So one of the deals that we did when I started was I bought grapes at those 7,000 Rand, if you remember, which is that 350 euros. Yeah, as time has progressed, I've we've worked or been or visited growers, we've spoken to them. One of the biggest challenges we have, which I haven't mentioned at all, is that in Elgin we're not really a wine region. It's an important apple. It's an apple region. I know, I love that. Exactly. And it's really important because there's 8,000 hectares of apples, and there was about 800, 750 to 800 hectares of grapes. Yeah. And interestingly, when I I I obviously I've learned this along the way, but one of the things that came up when I uh moved there is I hadn't understood why, or I started to understand why there was uh vineyards planted and not planted. They they got the idea of planting them from a paper written by this uh PhD student, I think it was, back in 1987. The first grapes were planted then by farmers who had a bit of land, people like Paul Cluber, Oak Valley, and Whitehall. Nobody else actually had any interest in doing that. And bearing in mind, some of those grapes had to be sold back to the KWV. So it wasn't, it was still during the uh the sanctions. Later, when it opened up, there was more interest in it. But that was apparently, and I don't know exactly that way it works, but there was deregulation in the apple industry, which led to a lowering of price points, as well as the fact that the apple industry had a lot of the wrong apples going into the new uh the new world, you know, the new sea sorry, uh what am I saying? That they had a lot of the wrong apples going into the new international markets, having been in South Africa. So that meant that the price dipped. And during that time, people started to take apples out, farms were sold, and therefore they started to plant uh more grapes. That was less interesting.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah. In Elgin, there was forbidden to plant grapes. I I looked at it. Okay. They started in 19 so the the 94 or something.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Uh in the late 1980s, they started with the 100.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah, so they started the the um the the the they started to with the PhD um paper came out, or the lady put this paper out in 1987, and Paul Clouver were the first to plant uh those vines actually have just become at 38 years old. But the um the actual issue was they just didn't want to plant grapes because they saw no value in it. The apples were selling happily. Yeah. But once 1994 hit, so so some people did it as a as a vanity project. It was a good thing to do. But it was only in 1984 when they when the new market came on stream and and South Africa opened to the world that the prices fell because they had the wrong apples and they weren't getting the money for them. Okay. So that's where farms started to be sold and they started to plant grapes.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

And then in 1990, 1994, apartheid abandoned, or was it 1990?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

1991 abandoned and 94 the new government.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah, exactly. And then it was allowed for us again to buy in uh South African wines, yes, and then the the market grew, grew, grew, grew. So first there came money to the South African wine industry. Money plus knowledge. So according to me.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yes, um according to the books. According to the books, yes. I think you have to look at it um very uh broadly on this particular case. So, yes, certainly there was knowledge that started to come in, but it trickled in to start with because in many cases the South African farmers, uh sorry, the winemakers were from a small pool who had passed uh college and there wasn't a lot of wineries. So there wasn't a lot of winemakers, but that made sense. There were a lot of wineries, and most of the wineries were cops. So the individual producers did have good winemakers, but then when the wineries started to grow, the issue was twofold. Firstly, there was a lot of cooperative ex-winemakers working in now fancy sellers, and that they didn't necessarily have the issue, the understanding of what um the best way to make wine was. So they just forged ahead in making what they had learnt at the co-op. The second issue is you had winemakers starting to graduate from Salembosch. But bearing in mind, I think somebody told me in 91 there were only seven graduates, but as time progressed, there was more people, more students doing the course. They that grew. As it grew, there were more winemakers coming on the scene. The issue, though, is like we all know, when you come as a winemaker out of college, you have you have got of theoretical knowledge, but not a lot of practical knowledge. But the problem was there were so many wineries now, they needed winemakers straight from the start. So they hired them very young, but they didn't have the experience having worked in lots of other countries or lots of other places in South Africa. Now, whilst a lot of winemakers then did start to travel internationally, during that period between 1994, in my opinion, and this is just my own personal opinion, between 94 and probably 98-2000, there was an awful lot of mixed um quality of wines. Um and and bearing in mind, when the when it opened to the Dutch market in 1994, a lot of there was a lot of love for South Africa, the rainbow nation had had had dawned and people bought wines simply because. Unfortunately, I didn't think the quality of the wine was probably that great. And I remember if if we go back, I was selling wine in London right then at that point. Yeah. And I remember going around and tasting, and I'll be honest with you, there were several winemakers who had no interest in tasting anybody else's because they made the best wine. That was the that that was the ego coming out. So it was clear that you know there was no exposure, none of those international wines made it in South Africa, and now this was a problem. And I felt that was a problem that we lost a little bit of ground during that period. Now, having said that, our wines came out cheap, so there was a certain volume um uh proposition came in, good value for money, and it filled up the supermarket shelves, but it didn't give us really good brand presence. That came later as those winemakers started to bring on more experience that had been internationally, and then you started to see the quality rise. Yeah, and I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah, yeah. So not the quality came not directly in 1994, it took a time, and then you have better education those days, and also actually what you see in the whole world, and when I refer to Germany nowadays, there's a a new generation coming. Children take over from their parents, yeah, they are better educated, they they they they travel around the world, they they go to wineries and in Chile and California and Europe, etc. etc. So there's more experience. So the quality is but because I'm very fond of South African wines personally from the last 10 years or something, yeah. Not before that. Before that, you it was a supermarket, then.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah, it was known for different kinds of wines.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Exactly, yeah. So in fact, when I was so for me, what when I went there in '95, what was so interesting about it was that meet meeting people like Mike uh Dob Mike Dobrovich and Martin Miner, who at that point was at Fairkleeken, that was an amazing experience of people who really were right on it in terms of what they were doing, and they had travel overseas, even in that short period of time. Um Mike had gone to say Hunters for Hunters, and Martin was a top student. So these guys were starting to make the difference. But there was a lot of wineries where they weren't necessarily having that input. They were still struggling along. And yes, you're right, that started to change in the early 2000s, and I think there was a number of factors that then took place as there was more um so some of the more smaller wineries and and the virtual wineries, of course, starting to set up.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah. But there were very there were very keen people who bought those little wineries with old root stocks and so on. So there you can make very, very nice wines, of course.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

You can, absolutely. Yeah, well, I mean, obviously during that early 2000s, whilst it was still in its early days and it started later, there was that interest in now looking at those vineyards that perhaps weren't being exploited, certainly obviously places like the Swatland and further afield where they had these gorgeously old vines in the ground. They didn't really know enough about them. Um people like Rosa Krueger was very much sort of starting to look at what to do. She was still working, I think, I can't remember, I'll speak under correction. I know she was working for one of the bigger Rupert companies, I think. But then there was this real drive to explore these unexplored, almost unexplored areas where there were some fabulously old um, you know, Shenon Blanc and Franch that was obviously Semion and so on. So exactly a lot of really interesting things. And I I think that gave interest to the offering that South Africa had. Because if you think about it, one of the challenges that South Africa had in its initial stages was it tried to offer all things to all men. So when you bought a winery, uh you bought a winery label, they did everything, you know, from Chardonnay to Binotage, Sauvignon Blanc to um anything, and plus the sparkling, plus the sweet wine, and and and it was difficult, a muddled offering, which at that time hadn't really been something that the rest of the new world had started to move towards to me, regionality, which is another point that I wanted to mention. But regionality was something that was very critical, and that was also one of the reasons I went to Elgin because uh we can bring that in later. But the the concept of where a wine comes from, rather than just making a wine anyway, what regardless of its orientation, that was to me a really, really important. Um, and it gives drive and interest to making the region a signature grape variety, which I think is is critical. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

We poured in another wine, another Chardonnay from we just have to sort of something with the clonal and the difference we we now we have uh an the lower diving hawks uh River Chardonnay, GPS. Yes. It's it's my favorite, to say the truth. It's the same price as the clonal selection, but I like a little more this one because it's I don't know why, but it's only made from one clone, the C895.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

And the other one is a mix of clones. So is for you the big difference in it?

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Okay. Well, just to quickly um take a step back. So just to explain the first one, which we we sort of touched on, that's a blender different clones, as we mentioned, from C195, 96, 76, 548, 277. And they're from different parcels, and they're all fermented separately in what is 21 batches. So they're all fermented separately. We use an algorithm to or rubric to put them to the different oaks that we use from um not just old and new, but also depending on the cooperages and things like that. And that's something we've been doing for many years. The difference between the Lower Damon Hawks is more because it was an interesting parcel of of grapes that I hadn't used before, um, or rather had an interest in. But there was it's a it's a two and a half, three-hour drive from where I live in Elgin. And it's on this really interesting area because within the Western Cape, most of the western part of the Western Cape, where the vineyards are, lie on very old soils, which which are talked about um ad infinitum, and there's beautiful old decomposed Bokwatch shales and granites and sandstones. But they're all in a decomposed state, but there's no young stuff. So these are all like 250 million years old upwards. With this area, because it's away from that area, in fact, away from the Cape Floral Kingdom, you've got some more youthful soils. Not that they're super youthful, but they actually are fossilized as well. So you get chalky and limestone buttonholes where you can grow these grapes. And the Lower Davenox is one of those where it's grown on this really interesting uh chalky soil or limestone style stall. It's not quite the same as limestone, but it's basically a different sort of uh type and it's got a lot more um pH in it. So the pH is higher, which results in this really lower, much lower pH in the in the glass. And that gives you that interesting textural component, which you're probably picking up.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Yeah, I think about it's uh it's a bit like um maybe uh you can't say it, but it's like a bit of Chablis.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Yes, yeah. Well, it I I I um I will answer that in a nice correct way for fear of a Burgundia listening to the podcast. I would say yes, I would say there's a certain textual uh tightness and chisel to the wine, which does remind me of Shablis. Um I suppose the question I have, which is which era of Shablis? Because the eras are now changing as warming is starting to take effect. So to an extent. I was thinking We did a podcast about that, about Shablis and global warming and global warming, and I I think yeah, I think they're probably a like a Shabley possibly from about 15 years ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

But it's a totally different yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

I this has a more uh what I call a nervous uh nervous, more nervous wine.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yes, it's according to me. It does have that. It's if anything, the only obviously because the the vineyard is a is a coolish vineyard, it's a flat uh vineyard about five kilometres from the sea. It's uh bel beside a place called pharmaclochite, which is that like an interesting little uh spot, and it's got a tiny bit more um hu it's a little bit warmer than elgin. But when I say warmer, elgin is very cold, so it's not really that much warmer, but it just gets a little bit more fatness and richness in the mid palate, which I think works with the acidity because that acidity kind of creates a belt around it and just brings it together. So you get that bit of breadth in the mid palate, but you also and richness, and you also get that lovely uh textural minerality as they call it, which is this sort of dark word we're not allowed to use anymore. But it's the essence, the effect of higher acidity, giving you that textural yeah, that salty mineral, yeah. Salty note, you know, what whatever.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

And I like that salty mineral stuff. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'm I'm a re swing lover, and you you like this more than I'm with you, yeah. Okay. Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Very ripe, very ripen and slower there.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

So uh it ripens. So it but the the bud break is a little bit quicker, uh, or earlier, I should say, and it ripens. Um it's a slow ripening. Uh we we pick it uh about I think probably three weeks before we pick elgin, two weeks. Um but but but again, that's not a good assimile because elgin is the last place you pick, uh almost certainly. Sometimes Hamilada can be late, but but but it's it's usually it's usually a lower diapinox Hamilada and then and then Elgin. Um and that's important, but that's because it's a very late beginning. But there again, Elgin only buds later. So ultimately you are you have a different thing. And that's largely to do with the winter dormancy, because that's an important factor why I was in Elgin as well, because one of the issues that that we don't really talk about, but um we mentioned it now with the Swatland and Selembosch, you've got these lovely old vines um of Shannon Blanc, and they go back, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years up to more, depending on where you can find those old 1942, 1946 blocks. But the other the issue is that they have um the Chenon Blanc has the ability to live that much longer for whatever reason, but there's certainly uh metrics that seem to, or not metrics, but there's certain things in place that have m enabled them to work really well. Their dormancy period probably is much less, much less demanding. But one of the problems with Chardonnay has a very um its dormancy is very uh it's is often interrupted. So it's like a light sleeper in the so if you a Shannon probably is a heavy sleeper, it will sleep through most things, but uh a Chardonnay is a light sleeper, it will wake up at the merest hint of warm day. So ultimately, if you don't get um enough sleep for the for the Chardonnay, it gets tired, and that leads eventually to 20 years down the line to the vine starting to pick up utipios or what they call tang pain in in South Africa, and that utipios will stunt this growth and that will finish the vine. So you won't see a lot of old vine Chardonnay. And to that point, you the only way you're gonna get that, and we know you get old vine because Burgundy has white vines of 65 years old, those or more, those are got to be in areas where your dormancy rate is allowing the cold units to be well over 300 um units. Elgin is fortunate because we get um about uh between six eight hundred and a thousand, uh largely because apples need 700 cold units, and because of that, we get proper dormancy, and that is why we're starting to see the very first older vine Chardonnays, as I mentioned earlier, the Paul Clue have a have a 38-year-old block. So that's interesting because that will mean that will be something we could do in the future as as the era area.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

But you build up a relationship with those growers and then you buy it every year.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

I I don't buy from him, so he he has his own range of wines, but I'm citing him as the first because they planted in '87, they actually have something that is now 38 years old. Obviously, others that have planted later. And the vine and to be to be fair, uh, outside of uh them having that old block, most of the plants that were planted were much more towards the 90s and 2000s. So we won't see much of that until 2035, up to 2040. And then that's gonna be very exciting because we once once we have old vines, we're gonna have this interesting bit ability to have structure um difference.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

There are also producers who say the age of the vines doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yes, um, there is there is, and and and to be fair, I'm I'm not gonna dispute that. I think that there is certainly we mustn't place so much too much consensus on old vines. Old vines are interesting. And I sat, I remember standing at Cape Wine in 2012, and I had a slightly contentious topic about Shannon. Being somebody who had made it for Mulderbosch and being part of the Shannon Association, there was, you know, is it is the bee all and endor old vines? And I remember thinking, well, at the time there were some amazing parcels of old vines, and clearly there was amazing wines, but then there was old vines that didn't really have any flavour at all. They were just old vines. Yeah. And and in importantly, another concept which came to light um talking to some of the growers was that if you think of a lot of those Swatland vines, in the past, one's certainly more Marmesbury than than than than the um the Paterberg, some of those had certainly been planted not for the idea of making old vine Shannon, but for making high-yield brandy because of that natural acidity. And they certainly were using clones that would accentuate quality quantity, not quality. And by default, the only reason they started to be interesting is because their age has now reduced and stunted their ability to produce much. That yield being reduced now creates something that is actually interesting and viable. So it's it's always interested me that perhaps if the right clones are planted and they get old, that could have another impact and layer on top of what we have already. So there's yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, then um Yeah, we have another I like this a lot. This is GPS.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

GPS, global grape positioning system. Just in case.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Explain it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

So the GPS kind kind of came out of the fact that I've oh I started as an Elgin producer, making only my wines from Elgin, no other place at all. But what I started to look at is that there were these lovely parcels of grapes. Fortunately, as we came a little more well-known, there was there was offerings and you know, like you you you you you meet winemakers, you meet growers, and said, Oh, what about do you want to take these grapes? There's some interesting grapes. And I wasn't comfortable because I didn't want to take anything from Elgin. Uh, not from Elgin, sorry. But unfortunately, uh, but fortunately, I pursued that and I started to look at this area. This was fantastic, what an interesting area on this little bit of buttonhole of chalky limestone, and this this opportunity to grow to buy this these grapes. So I thought, yeah, what a what an opportunity. So let's do that and let's then make something of it. And we carried on doing that. We actually have one from Clane River, which is another nobody's ever heard of, um uh wine of origin for for the Syrah, Bushvine Syrrers. And then we have one from Hemilanata Ridge, uh Pinot Noir. That was a little bit different because Pinot Noir to me was uh a grape which we're gonna have in a moment, and it's a grape that to me has lots of potential, but it has been uh a challenge as we've grown with Pinot Noir, but we'll talk about that another time. But Hemilanada clearly was an area that started it off, and I wanted to have something from Hemilanada and Elgin.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

So if you look at the GPS series, that that's are the top sites that you selected because they are.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Yeah, they're top sites in my opinion. Um, and there's and they reflect the Elgin ones in the sense that there's a Pinot Chardonnay and a um a Syrah, although we do also make a Serb Semion, um, which is uh one we had actually the other night in um uh wherever we were now, I'm trying to think. Rotterdam. Rotterdam. And that was uh that was um uh it's actually showing really well, and that we take from Hamilanada. It's um a quite not old vine semillon, but certainly old enough to produce some interesting grapes that that um give you give you something different to your normal semillon.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

And that's not the only thing, I think, because Kershaw wines uh in 2021 also uh had a nice addition to Europe. You became a member of the Cape Wemers.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Yeah, yeah, you joined the Cape Winemakers Guild. That's right. So um in uh 2012, yes, I was invited to join the guild, which is a a really prestigious group of you know highly um highly sought-after winemakers who are you know at the top of their game. Yeah, and I think it's a really good opportunity as a forum to meet and rub shoulders with people who have got you know high levels of knowledge and understanding, and um at the same time try making trying to make a difference for the for the community, especially with the Protege program to uplift uh black empowerment and so on and so forth. So I think it's a really exciting um vehicle. We we do some really cool tastings as well as a sidetrack. And when I get back, in fact, um, or once I get back, when I finish my I finish in Spain. So once I finish that, I'm going to be uh straight into the auction.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

During the years, yeah, you started up in 20 and uh twelve. Do you did you increase the quantities also nowadays?

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Yes, so so um what I did is when we started, obviously when we started we had no money, and and we still don't have, but um like wine trade, no money and exactly, exactly. And as I always say, if to make a small fortune, you need a large fortune. But no, we've been slowly growing over the years, and um, yes, certainly we now have a lot more barrels, a lot more wine than we used to have. Yeah, um, we're trying to make about 10,000 bottles of the Chardonnay, 10,000, well, 8,000 of the Pinot, about 8,000 of the Syrah. And that sort of is a nice place to be. Maybe we'll keep we've grown to that, should I say? We may grow further depending as the years pass. The deconstructed only started to hit us, um, and I see that now being passed around, that only started to hit us in 2015. And we started with very small volumes, 200 bottles. Um, and they were they were an intellectual exercise which we'll we'll chat about, but they have grown to about 600 bottles. Um, and also they've grown from two to four in the Chardonnay's case and from uh with the Pinot's that we we only started those in 2019 and they went to there were two of them, one or two of them, and the Syrup, which has always been about two or three. So those are all about uh now about five to six hundred bottles.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Yeah, I see, because we are now in a deconstructed area, yes, and there's uh only six hundred bottles or something. But I see that you actually you take very low juice from your grapes. I know for instance in Spain there are people over there who are making the bad cavas, the bad cava, who have a ton of grapes and they press 910 liters out of it.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Yes, yeah, very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

That is always always a challenge. But you do only 620.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Yeah. So I'm gonna I I'll talk about that because I think it's a really interesting point. But just before I do, I just wanted to say one of the things was that when we started in Elgin, one of the points that is important is I wanted to have a sense of place. Just to just to bear that in mind, because having a sense of place or sense of Tawa is something that gives you the understanding of the area without having to uh manipulate it. So it wasn't just about selecting the clones and the sites, but it was about understanding them and then in the winery trying to do as little as possible, minimal intervention. And that basically kind of then goes forward into you know avoiding having to use anything like acidity or we don't use any uh yeast, we we we ferment them uh naturally or spontaneously.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

You do nothing.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

No, we do nothing, no enzymes or anything. And that brings us to a very valid point because one of the things of being your own boss is that you can determine how much you don't take and do take. Now, when I was working in a bigger winery, one of the problems is juice recovery. Clearly, if you've got a ton of grapes and you can add an enzyme to them, you could increase your productivity to say, with service on 780 to 800 litres per ton. I'm uh with a carver that is exceptional. That there's some serious enzymes there. But if you put a little water on it and nobody knows it's I think, but certainly, you know, you can get it up to 780, possibly 800 with some serious enzymes, but then you're gonna have to press it really, really hard about two bars, probably even more. Um that is great, but the issue that you have with that heavy pressing and using the enzymes, because you're gonna basically be destroying the vacuole cells and uh splitting open the grape much more, you'll need to you'll you'll end up with lots lots of phenolics. The total phenolic index, what they call the TPI, is gonna be much higher. And when it stretches over 100 to uh to a point that's sort of two or three, four hundred, depending on if it's free on press or the press has been separate separated, you are gonna have to now add a product to fine it because you're gonna have too much bitterness. And that means that you're gonna need to add a product to get rid of that, which is fine because you're gonna try and still get the yield. For me, I wasn't interested in that. I wanted to press it so that the juice was delicious and I would avoid fining. And to avoid doing that, I I could basically use um no enzymes, no nothing. And it meant that I would have to press it at about when I first started, it was actually you press at what 0.6. Yes. That's very low, very low. But to be fair, it's not quite 0.6. What it's doing, it's a champagne press cycle. Yeah. So it actually goes up to 1.2 bars, but it goes up and down, so it kind of oscillates. But the more important thing is we just take it off once we kind of get to the taste that we want. So we are also tasting the juice as it's coming off. Of course. And once we get once it's taken off, we don't do anything else. The 625 litres is is a figure that we don't necessarily aim for. When I started, we started using a different press, and we lose we went for 600 litres per ton. That was kind of what I felt was the bad thing. And you're right, most of it is free run, but I I I don't mind a little bit of press because I don't mind something in it because it will give some structure. Yeah, I don't want it just to be free run. But what the press that we had was 600, and it was difficult to get more out without pressing it quite quite heavily. Then when we use the Sigma 5 Wilmus press, it's a much better press. It's got separate areas where the bag inflates, and that then had the opportunity to push it up to 625.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

Because you're you're still in the building with more people.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

So actually, that's a yes, that's a very good point. So, with regard to the producers, what I did is I um I took a slightly different approach. So you're right. I didn't, it's not when I say it's a custom crush, it's basically somebody who's own owns a winery, they make their own wine, and then basically I'm one of their tenants or their whatever, and they work with me a lot. One of the guys I've worked with for 13 years, um, and those guys basically what happened is I didn't want to use their press. Um, it's not there's nothing wrong with their press, but it's a smaller press. I actually bought a press. So they use my press that I bought in the other seller that I consult for. So they have I bought a Wilmers Sigma 5. That's so it's actually my toy, so it's my toy that they use. Then on the other side, for the consultancy project where I consult for them, I consulted them and said, you need to buy a Sigma V Wilmus press. For the D stemming, which we'll use on the um Pinot and Syrah, I bought the Rotovit, which is a high-end sort of not just a D-STemmer, but it's it does all the sorting as well. It's quite a fancy sort of machine. I bought that so that they then could buy and vibrating tables, and then they bought other things. And then I bought some of the tanks that I have inside the cellar. So it's not quite a custom crush. It's got another name, probably, but it's where I actually own some of the equipment in it so that I can make it in the way I would like to have it made. And I'm obviously consulting so that we we make their wine similarly. So that's very, very critical, actually. It's not just it's not just anybody's because the pr press is very expensive.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

They are so. And you only use it a few weeks per year, exactly. Like a bottling machine.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

You do, absolutely. And but I felt that was a worthwhile investment. And in fact, I bought two presses, one a Sigma Five Wilmerson and one a basket press for the for the Reds. So actually, I I I went all in because that to me was a very useful thing, because it was a point of contact where all the grapes have to be done, and you really need to be on top of that and how it's done.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

You needed that to create the wines that you want to create.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

Exactly, yeah. So you need you really need that, and the and the rotor was important because I want to take off the stems because not that I'm I mean, we all be using the stems in the in the ferment, which I'll explain later, but I wanted to remove the greener berries out of them, and those sorts of stemming devices are brilliant for that because they are proper sorters. So you pay a huge amount. It was actually cost me more, I think, even than the press eventually. Well, perhaps not, but but it basically it's not just a normal D-stemmer, it's a proper professional uh sorter too. So that had a big impact on you know, I wanted that was a uh it was a point of contact that needs to you need the right equipment.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:01

We have the deconstruction.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

We have the third shadow now, yeah. The deconstructed okay. Is this a CI95?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Yes. So this actually now illustrates a little bit about the clonal. So we talked about the clonal and about the various uh blocks that it comes from. They come from different sites and different soil types, and of course, I'm fascinated with clones for different clones too. So what I've done is um we've taken 11 vineyards, which we sourced from the for the Chardonnay clonal, and each of those vineyards has within it different clones. I've actually taken each clone and each soil type separately, so we end up with 21 batches.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

Okay. Each of those batches uses a rubric or algorithm, whatever you call it, to match them with the type of oak that we're going to use. So the oak could be, for example, it will all be French oak, and all the all the barrels we're using as are APS. So they're 228s, not Bariques. And that means that we can use certain coopers like Beyond and Eric Miyard and uh, say, for example, Louis de Tour, which are quite soft, and and they would work really well for 96, which is a long linear clone with high levels of malik, quite savory, and on a sandstone saw, quite light ethereal, and in and that and that works with those Coopers. 95, for example, is a little more buxum, a little broader, a little bit more um power to it. On a uh Bockabelt Shale saw, which this one is, this one has a little bit more grunt, and it's gonna accent that. So you can go with a little bit more new wood. So like the 96 would be on 15% new wood, this would be like say 50-60%. And here we're gonna be looking at tremor and um and chassin, where there's a little more of that sauna wood peatiness, that little bit of whiskey lactane, which is all gonna have different effects on the final one.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:38

Chassin is not easy to buy. The chassin. Chassin is not easy to buy. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

No. They do, yeah. Well, luckily, I I uh have a very good uh guy that I buy it from in South Africa. Um, he actually brings an importer, he imports wines, Alex Dell. He's an importer for um uh burgundy wines and and and and many others, but those uh we buy the chassis barrels through him. Oh, okay. So they are fantastic, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

Talking about selling, um delicious wine is this.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

Okay, it's also uh grown on the shale, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

Yeah, yeah, just sorry, just to finish that, I should say it's grown on shale from C195. In this particular case, we have C195 on other things. I've also just just uh not that everybody could see this, but Lake District is the area that I've called it. It's a little bit of an intellectual deep dive. So I've decided to split Elgin up using the 11 weather stations. And while I had a bit more time on my hands in 2012, 13, I decided that I want to look at the weather data, and I noticed that there were definite differences and inconsistencies. So whilst I've talked to you about the average rainfall of I think 1041 is our long-term average, there are clear differences in, for example, parts in the northern part, there's sort of croon land up towards the higher, higher altitudes. That's gonna have a little bit less rainfall, but it's gonna be a little bit cooler. To the west, you're gonna get more diurnal shift and difference between hotter days and cooler nights, but you're going to get a little bit more rainfall, 1200 mils, and then other parts you're gonna get colder, you know, and all these things. And and and you've got bodies of water because there's a big dam, so you've got that effect, and a whole bunch of different things. So I think I call this lake drift. This is right next to a body of water, and we've got a number of different ones. I think we've got a uh a Croonland coming up, I'm not sure, for our Pinot. Oh no, no, Pinot is uh Valley Ridge, so we'll we'll see that later.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

That's another part of um about the export market, and uh you the most wise you sell in the export, I think. Because I know we have a beautiful website, compliments about your website. Thank you. Very informative, very clear, and you can find everything very easy. The French can learn.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

A thing or two, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

Yeah, your website is absolutely beautiful, but uh you can also always buy the wines. But it's only for South Africa.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Unfortunately, so it's difficult to do it internationally because you obviously need the wine in the international locations.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

No, no, it's good for the wine trade.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

But is there a big inland market in South Africa?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

So actually, South Africa has been a small market for us to start with. And obviously, with just to kind of give you a bit of background to that, one of the reasons, as I mentioned, about not having a winery or a or grapes, I can focus on making the wine during the season, going around the vineyards pre pre-season. But once the wine has been made, I can have the opportunity to visit the export markets. And to start with, when I had started, obviously I had a lot of exposure through the Master of Wine programme, which was important. And a lot of a lot of people that I've worked with over the years are Master of Wine. There's no no I mean I saw your wives.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

I was in London. I w I went to a shop Berry Brothers, I think. Yes. And your wines were there.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

It was Jasper Morris who selects the wine over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

I I yes, it tested it. Okay, okay. I I remember we started with um because that was uh master of wine, Katriana Felstead, so she reached out to me. Yeah. Um obviously at the time, like here, even even Job hadn't passed at that point, but obviously we we we connected and not Job. You, sorry, yes, yeah. It was true, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

No, we came we came to your wines.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

That's it, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

I had you because I was visiting South Africa with my family, just doing the the big five thing and so on, uh Groove Park, etc. etc. And Job was in those days, and I talk about eight years ago or something. Eight years ago, I think. Yeah, um, and uh Job was doing his uh a master wine program over there in Stella Boss. That was probably yeah, and I I and and all already knew Job for years, and said, listen, I'm going to South Africa. So um um, can we meet? Can we do a nice dinner or something? I said, of course. I'm still in Boss, yeah. I'm still in Boss too. So we went to a restaurant, Rust en Freder. Of course, yes, you said yeah, and uh Job and uh and my family were with five of us, uh my daughter, my son, my daughter, my wife, and me, and Job five. So we were at the table, and then uh suddenly the the sommelier popped in and for choosing the wines, and we said, Oh, talked a little bit, and uh yeah, Morgazon, uh uh uh Shine Rimporters the Morgazon in the Netherlands, and yeah, yeah, yeah. I've better better than the Morgan. Okay, yeah, then I figured show us. So he came up with your clonal selection. Ah, interesting, yeah. Your Chardonnay clonal selection. So we tried to close that, and I was totally fond about it. And I I thought, well, and then we had three weeks' holiday to go, but in my head, always your clonal selection.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

Ah, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

And when we came back to the Netherlands, I said to Job, listen, we have to do this. And Job said, Well, it's almost no availability, and it's very difficult with transport. I said, No, Job, we have to do this. You know, I will do it. And uh, okay, we found out there were only 200 bottles or something clonal selection. Okay, yeah. The rest was all sold out, and I wanted to have that. So, but it was very difficult to get it, of course, with transports and so on. So I arranged with Job to do a transport together with the Morgan Zone. So that's why, and that was our first batch, it all went to Nijmegen, 200 bottles of clonal selection Chardonnay. We sold it out in 10 days, two weeks. Which year? Whatever. Which year was it? Well, I don't know, 2014 or 15, 15. Early, I think 15, yeah. 2015 or something. Yeah, and and then and then it started to roll also with the other members of the Genereux who wanted it also, and now it's at the point where we are now.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:01

Yeah, that's also a good thing to mention.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:02

These wines that we have today, and that we are tasting is uh you can send me a few cases extra of the because we have now we have now the the the deconstructed, but yes, even our shop in Nij has only twelve bottles of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Yes, so obviously that you make six hundred bottles out of it. There's not a lot, no, and we probably should make more, and uh it's uh it's something I keep being told. Uh and we can. Um I I I I I it's it'll never be a large amount, but it will be something um because I'm keen to keep it at the quality that we have. But we can make we could probably make seven or eight hundred, it's not a big problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

Not all the shops have everything, you know. The global selection, every shop has global selection, and it's very priceworth, you know, it's 4650. All the general shops, 4650, and also the driverhog, it's the same price, 46.50. This is a little bit more expensive, of course. It's 80, 89 euros, but I think for the quality, yeah. I think but I I'm not thinking, uh I know you I told you before, I'm a burgundy guy. This is very proper premier cruise, white, something like that. For according to me, and then you pay double in Burgundy for this quality. I agree, especially now. So it's of course it's money, it's money, money. But it's it's worth it. You know, that is the point. And you can only buy when you're lucky, one or two bottles or something. You don't get more.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:35

No, no, you cannot buy cases from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

So I know. So beautiful wine.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:41

Absolutely beautiful and uh restricted. This is 2019. This is from my private cellar because I didn't get any bottles of the Gennaro. Uh Job didn't give it to me. No, all the other bottles are sponsored by Gennaru. Yeah. But there was no shutter, so I'd put this out from my private cellar.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

Thank you. Well, no, thank you for sharing with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

That's why it's on the corner.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

I see, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

It's got it's correct now. So we start so we shall start with the red wines. Let's do that. Yeah, um you I don't know uh what time uh yeah, we are at the one hour and twelve minutes now. Okay, then we have to start with the red ones. Yeah, you cool down the we start with uh with uh Pinot Noir clonal selection. Yeah, it's in here, it's not too cold now.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:32

We um yeah, just quickly to answer that question. So in terms of where we got off to export, the the markets I started with were very much export. That seemed to be a uh an area that I could work better with. Yeah, and so up until 2019, we worked with um uh mostly export, and I do work with naked wines in the UK and and actually more recently in the US. So we sell some wines, not three wines for the cursor label, but another label which I make for them. And importantly, that altogether came to about 98% of the wines that are exported, and locally it was only over 2%.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

So very little, very little. Very little. So what we've done how how how but not talking about your wines, but is there a local market in the yes?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:16

So so no, the local market for for most is quite high. So you would normally have 60% local or so or the other way around, 40% local, and the rest export. Okay, and for us personally, from 19, we've actually grown that from 2% locally, we're now at 25% locally. Yeah. So it's uh or 22% locally, and it's grown a lot because there is a now a better more understanding of of the wines. I think it's important to to say something quickly is that what you what you said, Marcel, which is so interesting, is that you you were comparing it immediately to a Merceau, and you were uh you were knew what a Merceau would cost, and you know that at 89 euros for the deconstructed, it's a better value wine. You have to remember in South Africa that people are not drinking burgundy. So there's no concept of what those what prices they are. I mean, there are people at the top end drinking it, but when you look at a wine for that price, they are saying, well, it's just an expensive Chardonnay. Yeah. So it's taken a long time, and now obviously those who who know the wines and who understand the wines and those who drink burgundy anyway have complete understanding of its intricacies. But I remember one of the very first tastings I did that many, many years ago, and I had it was a very it was the most disheartening tasting I ever did, was with a group of wine uh wine lovers, which I thought would be a great start, and they um tasted the wines, and uh at the time the wines were cheaper because it was a bit, it was when we started, it was 600 Rand for a bottle of wine. And I remember one of the members said, Well, it was a really interesting tasting, Richard, but for a hundred bottles I can buy a Chardonnay for a hundred wine, hundred wines, so I can just buy six of those. Yeah, and I said, Yes, but you've tried the wine, surely you would be interested in uh you know buying that now. And and the interesting part of it is, well, I can still buy six bottles. I get six for the price of one. Yeah, well, and I said that that's that's different mindset. That's the thing, and I think that has changed in South Africa, and I think people are starting to understand not only in South Africa, no, not only in Africa, people are proud of their own product products more, exactly. So I think there's a difference with that, and that was I was facing, but that has changed since COVID.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:13

We have seen a lot more in the world in the world that it's changing, you know, you know that the the wine consumption worldwide is is collapsing, it's premium getting down, but the quality gets up, and the prices also get up. People drink less but better.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:30

And that is in our advantage, your advantage too. I think. You're not a price.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:35

No. And I think when you look at South Africa, just as a point of view, just to uh mention that, the vineyard space has grown, uh sorry, has decreased rapidly over the last 20 or so years. I think it was about 113 when I arrived, South Carol, 115, and it's now at 86,000 hectares. What is interesting about that uh hectarage is that in fact we see a lot more um obviously the grubbing up has happened at a quicker pace than the replanting. But um, I was reading the Sarvis report uh recently, I think it was about six months ago, and they had some statistics that every single wine region in South Africa has ripped up more vines than they've planted, apart from one. Apart from one. It was elegant, yeah. But we didn't have a lot to rip up, so I you know it we came from a low base, but I think it's a lot of people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

Mosul, uh Mosul area, uh and my friend Annie Lawson um tells me that um it went down there from eleven thousand hectares to seven thousand in 20 years' time.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:35

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Yeah, and you see world consumption of wine uh for especially the red wines uh in two years' time is minus 15%. People are drinking less, young people also drink no alcohol or special beers or cocktail stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:53

Yes, and and but but that's I think it's also starting again because uh in the last five years, I think there's uh a lot more uh influencers and so on with wine. So it's it's getting more sexy to drink wine again, I think, uh in the next five or ten years. Well, I think better quality wines then, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:16

I think better quality, definitely. I think the other issue is that one of the challenges that it's not just about not drinking wine, it's about affordability. And the problem that the new generation has is that they're unable to necessarily afford the the wine because the cost of living is expensive. You you know, you can't just come in and buy a house like you could in the past, it's very difficult to make ends meet. And that's uh and people are having families later. And remember that people tend to drink wine as a convivial thing, and generally you you need to, you know, you've got you've got a family, you've got a small child, or you're you're a couple, you go out with another couple, or you have a meal at home, that's when the wine comes out. But at the time when you are still looking for a partner, you're still um having fun or doing whatever, then you're kind of gonna have a cocktail or whatever it is. Yeah, um, and that's happening at a later stage. Instead of 30 years old, it's happening more closer to 35, which which is which is just the cost of living issues, yeah. That's an interesting thought, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:08

But still, 80% of the South African wines in the Netherlands still go through the supermarket channel. Yeah, it's all the the cheap, cheaper wines, and not it's not as dramatic as it used to be at two kills 69 for uh a bottle of pardodal or something. Jesus Christ. But I would be a rabbit, I want to be marinated in it. It's terrible. But that that these guys are losing markets, yes. And I'm happy with that.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:43

It's better. Uh uh also for the name of South Africa.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:46

Yes, I agree. And I think that's a great thing. That the issue that we've had though is we didn't have the strong brands in the beginning. So we didn't have those places like Conchitoro or Penfolds, where you have that lad, those ladder brands, where they came in with these lovely, easy drinking, sort of Cassier de Alblo and the Penfolds, whatever the Kunika Hill.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:03

Lindemonts.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:04

Yeah, all of those. They came in at a low price. The supermarkets were able to get them, and then people would say, Well, I like these wines. And then as they kind of got more engaged with wine, if they did, not many people, not everybody does, they remember those brands, and those brands had higher levels, and that and they were at a higher price point. So you had some continuity. We've struggled with that in South Africa. We don't have that. Kamala was one option, but it never really had high tiers, it was very much an easy drinking wine, and I think that has an effect on the way that it was sold. There was a lot of um what I would call good brands being sold at a slightly reduced price, mainly because of currency differences. And now I think there's a sense, well, actually, they do deserve to stand on their own and they have a value that we should pay for those wines. Um, and I think that has changed. I agree. Yeah, luckily.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:50

What a nice when I would live in South Africa, I would know. I I wouldn't buy Burgundy or Bodo, also never. I would buy Molina, uh Ibn Sadi, your wines, yes, uh, Kosho, or whatever. Because there's plenty. We have very, very, very beautiful wines in uh beautiful. We have beautiful stuff over there. So why and knowledge, I think. But I don't know if they are in in in the South Africa there are a lot of rich people over there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:19

Well, is there a lot of no, there's a lot of wealth actually. In Joburg, there's a particularly uh, you know, it's huge amounts of wealth. Remember, South Africa is one of the most inequal countries on earth. Um, and just to give you a statistic, the Maserati garage in Joburg sells more Maseratis than any other dealership in the world. Oh, yeah. So there's a lot of money. There's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:36

There's a lot of money, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:37

There's a lot of money. And the thing is, though, unfortunately, you know, the inequality means we have a lot of people who live in poverty, but that's that's still as as as awful as it sounds, it is it there is still people who drink wine and they can afford those really fancy wines. Okay. And interestingly, it's worth bearing in mind, we can buy all those burgundies and all those borders, all the fancy stuff. You can buy everything. Um, funnily enough, the only things you can't buy is at the bottom end. So you can't buy a generic Australian or a Chilean or something like that. But you if you want to buy Gaia, if you want to buy first growths, if you want to buy top burgundies, you can buy the license, you can buy DRC, Patruse, you can buy the any of those things. Okay. So you can get them all. And the prices are not bad, they're actually sometimes quite reasonable. Okay. Um I know when I've bought wines, you know, internationally, and my I have a seller at home with about three and a half thousand bottles. Uh 80% of those is international. And many of those wines actually cost me less in South Africa than I would pay in Europe. Okay. Even though they're European. Yeah. So that helps. We have an EU agreement. But let's focus also on the side.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:36

I have another question. There's now sometimes you read it in the newspapers. Um the the the attacks on the white farmers in South Africa. Um, do you think in your case you're not really a farmer, uh, that actually you're a winemaker, you're not really a farmer. But do you think in the next future, when I s for instance, uh I I say the better, for instance, to give an example, is that dangerous or no.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:05

I think the the unfortunately this whole um the attacks on farmers has been grossly overexaggerated, especially obviously driven by the Trump agenda, which I understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:16

A few weeks ago, the South African president was in the Trump's office, and he got the full load.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:23

The photo that he showed of all those um crosses, which he showed on the on the video, that was actually not what it said. There was there was a farmer that was killed, two two people, and in fact, there was also a number of the workers killed, so there was about three or four people, but the crosses were put there as a sympathy from the other farmers to thank them and the other workers to to as a sign of consolidation. So whilst it looked like there were a hundred crosses, there were, the fact is it wasn't for a person, it was in colors in it was as a tribute or a memory, I should not a tribute, but a memory of those things, of those. Yeah, over exaggerated. And the problem is we have to remember that the farms are run. We we look at it from the fact that there are uh say the owner is maybe white, but the fact is there's a lot of workers that are highly invested in those farms. And those guys may be black or coloured, and they are very, very much uh not happy about any of these things. And often, whilst we listen and hear that the farmer was killed, a lot of the other people who are working on the farm, the workers who actually drive the farm forwards, are also hurt or killed in the process. So it's not just uh no, because it's not good news. And unfortunately, you know, when we look at the West in terms of Europe and America, it sells more news when these things happen and it is grossly out of ex uh it's grossly put out of date. And to be fair, you know, there are definitely one or two farmers that possibly, you know, aren't very nice to their workers and possibly uh they certainly don't deserve to be killed, but that was probably the animosity is created that creates this the the the situation that that that harm may come. So I think most of the time it isn't such a a problem. It unfortunately happens more also in the in the northern areas, um like the Free State, uh well, a little bit in Three State and a little bit Lumpopo and Mumpomalanga, where you have larger farms producing, you know, in massive, massive farms, not in the Western Cape. Not in the West Cape, not in the West Cape. I don't think it's ever happened in the Western Cape. No, no. There was a situation once once many years ago, but again, that they found out it was actually quite interesting, it was a big scandal at the time, and they discovered actually it was more to do with somebody, uh it was actually to do with somebody placing a hit on them. So it wasn't actually to do with just a random act of violence, it was it was very, very premeditated. So, yes, these things get grown blown out of proportion and it and it doesn't help the country at all. And of course, you know, as we know, the agenda in America is very, very fluid at the moment. There's lots of different angles, so it makes it very challenging to always see the truth. The what is it, the wood for the trees. So anyway, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:49

Don't talk too much about this because we talk about wines.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:52

We talk about wines.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:53

This is now the clonal selection uh Pinot 2021. Uh yeah, 2021. Okay. Tell us about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:02

Okay, yeah. Uh the clonal selection Pinot. So the Pinot was a wine that I produced um in 2015, and the the Pinot is actually interesting because we have um uh about the same amount of clones. We use four or three Dijon clones, I should say, 777, 667, and 115. Those are the main const const constructs, and in those clones, they are made using um an interesting technique where I actually take uh the grapes into the winery, and what we do is we actually work on the principle of trying to get colour into the grapes as well as um trying to extract enough from the grapes once they're on the actual skins. So we do a few different things. Um, firstly, Elgin itself hasn't got a great history of Pinot Noir, it's starting to make its own history, which is very promising. Um, there obviously are those growers and wineries who have done really, really good things. But the issue is is that we need to be a bit more uh we we we're starting to become more aware of what we have. So there's some really good people who have made great wines, but Hemilanada Propsy B has been a little more consistent in its ability to make um great Pinot's, and Elgin is starting to find that rhythm. I think Elgin is trickier to make good wine in uh sorry, sorry, sorry, sod again. It's a trickier area in the sense that the metrics that are for Pinot in Elgin are different and therefore actually promising and even better because when we look at Pinot, the old sort of adage is that Burgundy has its uh roots in a style of Pinot, as it does with Chardonnay. But if you look at the world of Chardonnay, I think that when we can honestly say that the rest of the world has done a very, very good job at the top end of catching up with Burgundy and many, many facets of making Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, I think it hasn't been as successful as. And largely Pinot Noir, in a in a in a in a roundabout way, has become a slightly different product to many other styles of um styles of Pinot that you get in Burgundy. So there's a lot more of the sort of cherry cola style or the strawberry cordial style or the low tannin style. We for me that's not necessarily um Pinot, but it it but yes, it it's it's a style that that works. For me, I'm looking more for the for the more sort of classic style of Pinot, and I think that I think Elgin does it well. We can have the tannins in the wine, we can get the acidity, and if we build up the mid-pallate by by increasing what they call um the colloidal matrix, to use a technical term, we can actually get something of equal complexity and and and um refinement.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:38

But according to me, it is far more difficult to make good pinot noir than good Chardonnay. I think. I'm not a wine maker, but I th I think because you have to deal with tannins and your skin and so on and you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:56

And I would say obviously making great Chardonnay is Is as difficult as making great Pinot. But the Pinot's challenge is that it has a little bit more to it between red wines because of the fact that it has this very light veil of or this very small margin of error. Because it's a very light coloured wine, because it's a quite a delicate wine, and because it sort of has a very finite amount of tannins and acid, and it tends to show any defects quite quite easily. Whereas other grapes like like Shiraz or Cavernet tend to hide some of those defects. Funnily enough, Pinot, for example, has the problem with colour. It has non-acylated anthosanins that leaves it prone to go browning. So, you know, other color other grapes don't have that problem. And with Pinot being a light colour, nevertheless, you end up with that slightly different But the areas where you can make good Pinot are very restricted. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:51

So there's a lot less Chardonnay is all over the world. It's the most planted white variety in the world. Yeah. Chardonnay the last few years. Pinot Noir isn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:03

No. Totally different. And I agree, that's the other thing. But the issue with Chardonnay is totally different to Pinot. Chardonnay is ubiquitous around the world, but its issue is that it's not always in the right spaces. So you've got a lot of Chardonnay being made, but only great Chardonnay being made in a very small amount of areas.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:19

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:19

Pinot Noir, you haven't got a lot of generic Chardonnay, uh sorry, generic Pinot Noir because it's actually not very interesting generic Pinot. It's so therefore if you're going to make Pinot, you have to make an effort of making it pretty good. Yeah. You know, as you know, you can buy cheap Chardonnay on the on the shelves, but you can't buy cheap Pinot.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:34

No, because it's not $5.95 uh Lindemals, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:40

Okay, yes, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:42

Delicious. Delicious.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:43

Yes. And and I also think Pinot is a very particular palette. It's a sort of wine that you you you go towards as you go up the market louder in price points. I think it's a place you get to. Um so yes, I think Pinot is a very interesting one in terms of where it sits. But to finish wrapping up, basically, with regards to the Pinot, it's basically a wine that we leave it on the skins a little bit longer. We do rack and return. Yeah. We do Delestage, we add a little bit of stems as well. That's largely to help with the colour because of that the non non-acylated heads. Um, and then what we do is we also leave it on the skins using Delestage to try and also um get a bit more extract and build up that uh colloidal matrix. Yeah, so that's really critical to make the wine age because we're we're trying to make a uh you know, uh not a uh a good wine, we're trying to make an excellent wine which has really got the ability to make it. You need to make an excellent wine, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:34

And if for Pinot Noir, for me, it's always uh difficult because the Pinot the real Pinot Noir buyers have um um it's a certain type of people. Yeah, you want the elegant wine. You only have a lot of knowledge about other Pinot Noirs.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:51

Yes. I think it was is it weight without power? I think I remember reading someone said, and I thought that was quite an interesting sort of term, uh, or power without weight, one of the twos where you've got this interesting dynamic where it's that feeling in the mouth that it's got so much to give, but it's not feeling it's not punching you, it's not it's not hitting you. It's that that's the secret with Pinot. It has a a lot of really interesting dynamics, and they people do know their Pinot's. It's one of those grapes where people really understand the stuff, so they don't they don't take uh don't take to it kindly when it's not a very good one.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:22

Um during the time, uh how how late do you have to go? Because uh we are running out of time, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:27

We're running out we have only one Shira to go. Yeah, shall we do that? Yeah, the Shira wine.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:32

Yeah, and uh also to mention this wine is uh very, very it's delicious, really it's a bit a bit thicker.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:39

It's 2019, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:42

Yes, that's so we've got the 2019, that was the the gravel over clay. Gravel over clay, I think that's a triple seven. So this is a block. Um we've been playing with this block uh for a few years now. It's a really, really interesting um block. The the vines themselves are dryland farmed. They have a um they're grown on this uh well, gravel over clay, and it's a vertiginous slope. I mean it's so steep that you actually struggle to walk up and down it. Um it's also interesting because the block is made up of 777, and then at the very far end, there's a little PN52, which is an old uh Freiburg clone, and that's the one I use for the guild wine.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:22

Freiburg clone German.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:24

It's a German clone. Although, if you look at the history, that could be also Swiss German, and it could also be uh a sparkling wine clone. But um it's it isn't from a farm which does make sparkling wines, so it's likely to be something along that line.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:38

Did you choose the 777 um like uh a special project? Because yeah, it's known for the darker fruit and uh yeah, more or less uh teacher.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:46

I I chose 777. So interestingly, in Elgin, the trans sort of the translation of flavors in Elgin is slightly different always to other places. So 777 uh around the world is often noticed for having a higher alcohol, but in our region we don't tend to get the alcohol. We get a lightness, we get a finesse, we get a joyful, fragrant sort of wine, um, which is more ethereal and definitely without that sort of corresponding alcohol. Although our alcohol is generally not super, super high. Um it was a bit riper in 2019, but generally we're more 13, 13 and a half. With regard to the 115, however, that is a little bit more uh structured, a bit brig bigger, a bit more guts. Um, and usually when we take it off the skins, a little more tannic as well. The 52 is just a a little aside, so that's one I just use for the guild because it's a fun thing to do. Um, and I call it the vertigous Pinot just in on the basis that it's racist slaves.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:39

Nice, this is beautiful. Yeah, also 89 euros in a légion shops.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're happy with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:52

Okay, we're going over to the the last one. What time is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:55

Yeah, it's uh almost it's five o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:58

So uh how many time did we use?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:00

Uh one hour 34. Uh 34 minutes now. So we have to wrap up, so we are gonna finish up with a Shira.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:10

We end up with a Shira. Oh um, yes. Okay, I bring you. You have to go to the shop uh from uh Natan.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:20

Next tasting okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:23

This is totally different than a nose, huh? Yes, yes, absolutely it's a good idea to pour it at the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:30

Yes, and this was basically um this is now a slightly abstract grape, as as as I've talked about, not not not usually as much as I usually do, but obviously um Elgin is the coolest place in Zavish good growth. But I think it's important to remember that it's actually cooler than Burgundy nowadays. The temperatures rarely go above 30, 35. 35, they go up above about two to four hours a year, so hardly at all, and we get about 40 to 80 hours over 30. So we just don't get that really hot temperatures at all. And if as I said about the cloud cover and so on and so forth, we get high rain. So we are cooler than Burgundy, so now we're expecting to ripen syrura, and we're in tr we're in trouble territory. It is so marginal that it means that there's a likelihood we're going to lose grapes. And every year we do lose a portion of the syrura to um a bit of powdery or downy mildew, sometimes rot, and so on and so forth. We're picking this right at the end of March into early April, and that's a very dangerous time to pick grapes.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:25

Because of the rainfall and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:27

The rain usually starts once the Econox hits in the 21st, we start getting our first rains, if not before. And the last few years we've actually had them much earlier than than that. So, yes, it's a challenge to make it. But my goodness, if it's on the edge, the edginess makes it something different. And I I I I always use an expression very my very first vintage, uh Janice Robinson uh judged it, and she she wrote that it's the Pinot style of Syrah, and I thought it was a lovely turn of phrase. I've always used that since because in a way it's this lighter, more delicate, elegant style with a small red fruit, and and of course, because it's from Elgin and and because it's not being picked as it's being picked late, but the alcohols are still quite low, yeah. It is actually got a lot of rotundo in that black pepper character or white pepper, yeah, which I love and value in Syrah. And the the whole reason of putting Syrah and making it was very much because I love the roan. And the roan I slightly fell out of love with. Once I once I sort of drink cut routes at 15, 16% plus, there starts to be, they lack the vibrancy and zestiness, despite any of the Viognier's elegance. And that makes me that made me a little sad. And I felt that, you know, and whilst I'm not a big fan of the bigger, bolder sort of um styles that we get, we get them in South Africa, and obviously we get them in in in Australia. It was something that I wanted to have differently. And I think that you know, we we um in Elgin we can do something. Um we do add some stems to this, so we get a little bit more structure, but again, unlike Swatland, where they add 100% stems, we can add about 20, 30, 40, depending on the year, um uh enough stems just to to give it a bit of bite to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:59

A little bit of structure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:01

It clearly shows the potential for this wine. It's uh it's ripe, yeah, yet restrained. Yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:10

But yeah, like you said, it's harder to grow, so it's more risks also to it's very risky, and sadly, um within Elgin, we've we've battled a little bit with our growers because one or two or one grower in particular had to take some of the syrup that we took out, and other growers are keeping with us. Um what I wanted to say actually, which which I didn't say, but it's a very important factor, is that those group prices of grapes have gone up, and in doing so, whilst I'm not necessarily I I've been body part of it, but necessarily, you know, whatever, it's between the growers, but it's also we think the price of grapes has gone up a lot, and that's helped because it keeps the grapes in the vines, it's allowed us to plant more, but unfortunately, as time is progressing, there's a tendency to pull out grapes that aren't Pinot and Chardonnay because those are the ones that lack the that that that they don't have the price ceiling. So um Syrah doesn't either, you could argue, but you could always see Pinot and Chardonnay will always be more expensive as a as a as a you know on an international scale. So the the the prices there is no price limit. With Syrah, the challenge is that it's not the price problem, it's a more the fact that if you're losing yield, the farmer's going to be suffering financially. And even though I suffer to an extent I can get my crop, I'm not necessarily paying for the stuff that I don't get. So therefore, I do understand the plight, and that's why we're you know we need to work with these guys and and pay more for these grapes and and and make a better job of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:29

Yeah. Because now we have which year is it? 2020, yeah. 19, I think, right. What do we have? 19 here.

unknown 1:38:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:37

But it's already six years old. Yeah. When when do you release your wines?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:42

Quite late, huh? Yes, we released our wines. Um, okay, I've got 20 on here, but yeah, I don't know uh I thought it was 20. Uh but it doesn't matter. But you're right. Joe, with wine releasing, we've released our wines um usually after about two to three, well, three years, I would say. So currently we're on to uh the 2020 uh SIRAs, and then we'll move soon on to the 21s. But no, I actually reduced the I I made the release time more. When we started the project, obviously we had marketing problems. Uh well, not marketing problems, we sold all our wines, as you mentioned, you know, you could only buy 200 bottles. But the problem that I struggled with is that when we were tasting those wines, and in particular when we had the you know the commentators who love to score all the wines, that the issue that came up a lot was the wines were still very tight, very young, sometimes a little bit reduced. And I just got the impression that I that these wines are being released too early. And because I'm the boss, I can just say I said we're not gonna do that. And in COVID, what we did is we didn't enter any of those wines in, and we we took a decision to release them a year later. So whilst everybody is on probably the 23s, 22s, we're we're we're moving on to the 22s and 20 for the for the sharp, you know, and we're moving on.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:53

But it's almost to 2026.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:55

Exactly, it's almost 2026. But in the fairness, that's the other thing. With these sorts of wines like the 2020, uh like these 19s, they're they're going to last, and that's the point that we're seeing in all the wines that we've tasted. We don't have, unfortunately, a track record of more than 10 years, but but actually, this is fine, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:12

It's 2020, this uh the Shira, it's five years old now. Yes, that's not yeah, we you ate yeah, April, yeah, maybe a little bit more. Yeah, so this is delicious, you know. And in the Netherlands, where you buy now Northern Ron, we have 2023, and maybe even 24 already.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:31

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:32

And now you have more age, yeah, yes. So it's it's a little bit down, so now it's easier, it's not that nervous anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:40

Yeah, exactly that. And that's kind of what I wanted to create. And it's a dangerous place to be because you don't want to have it too old, but I want to have the wines drinking really well because that's something I've always valued when I when I when you buy it, you can drink it, and it's already aged for but it's of course also a money question because you don't sell it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:57

You leave it there, you need space to stock it up. Storage. You don't have your money.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:02

No, so you do, and that's is a is a constant battle, I agree with you, and it's something that we've you know, because we've thought maybe we should go keep go go a bit forward again. And and there may be sort of movements in that depending on how we go forwards, but yes, it is a challenge because it costs a lot of money um to to keep your wines in storage.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:19

Yeah, okay. Great. Yeah, we are at one hour forty-one minutes already. Oh Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:24

Right uh, all right, again, again, but uh we're used to it. Yeah, yeah. Uh I have to bring you to the shop in Nijmegen to Nathan, my little Ares. Tonight you have a presentation over there. I thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for visiting for all tasting your wines. Um we I people will learn a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:45

Yeah, I hope. I hope, yeah, that would be good.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:48

And we will see it. Okay. Um, well, thank you, Richard.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:51

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:51

It's a big beautiful wines, beautiful wines, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:55

I have them in my private cellar, that's that's something.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:58

And looking forward to the future of uh Albion and everything else possible. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:04

Thank you very much. Cheers. Ciao, ciao.