December 2002
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Who ate all the pigs? "Saansie and the A Team", as they liked now to be referred to, assembled in Manie's garden for the traditional Christmas braai. It was the Friday before Christmas and they had a half day followed by a week's leave ahead of them. It was a good time for us to chat with the guys and find out what motivated them, what their aspirations were and whether individuals were here to stay or here just until a better job came along. The daily work over the past months had been hard. We believed Saansie when he said he had achieved more with this team of ten guys than in previous jobs when he had twenty or more under his control. The reasons were several. They were all learning new skills. A few had worked on vineyards before but never on organic vineyards or vineyards at our early stage of development. The husbandry skills being taught by J-C to Saansie and the team were new to them and therefore interesting. Different parts of the vineyard were at different stages of development and so needed different techniques, thus the jobs were varied. They had great pride in what they had achieved and were not shy about saying so. The quality of these individuals was obvious and it was down to two factors. Firstly Saansie had weeded out the bad apples. The team had started at sixteen, but he and J-C found that the poor performers were taking up so much management time that they had to be let go. The remainder saw their wages go up as the team got smaller and achievement increased. This also resulted in tremendous team pride. They started calling themselves the A team and at the team braai were keen to extol the virtues of each other's skills. Also we noticed that these individuals were in control of themselves. In the past Manie had to read the Riot Act at the end of the party whereas this time, with just one exception, they were fully in control, but having fun. Saansie himself does not drink at all which is a major influence and by the time of the Christmas party, apart from Saansie and his family, we only had one couple living on the farm. It is no surprise that by living away from the farms they work on and by integrating into the local community these guys can only increase their self reliance and self esteem. They have a life outside the farm and outside of work and so spending all their free time drinking doesn't necessarily appeal. It is our policy not to increase the number of staff we have living on the farm and in the last three years we have reduced the number through natural wastage. We are also planning a trip. The team are split between football mad and rugby mad so after the harvest we plan to take them on a couple of trips to see a football and a rugby game. That will be a real test of self control for us all!
In the first week of December we had a blast from the hot Easterly wind. It roared through the wind breaks and roasted some of the Syrah. The leaves of the Syrah are larger and softer than the Cabernet and the Cab was unaffected. The ends of the rows in one block were hit hard. Where the leaf growth was less dense the leaves were relatively unprotected and so became shriveled and brown. J-C did some emergency pruning to encourage leaf regeneration and gave compost to the affected vines but at this stage we were prepared to reduce the crop drastically on these if we don't get a high enough leaf count. Where the leaves were blown violently against the wires they were also damaged. Now we know this block is so susceptible we will change the trellising so that in a wind the wires can be unhooked and lowered to prevent this. In fact we may introduce this across the vineyard if it is feasible. J-C also talked about pruning the new blocks differently next year to produce more leaf density for wind protection. Next year there would be more shoots on the 2000 vines so a denser canopy would help. We mentioned in the last diary that some of the vines were showing a bit of nutrient deficiency. J-C got some reasonable rich compost from Cape Guano and applied it to the 2000 Cab and the 2000 Syrah. With the heat wave the weaker vines also showed pretty serious water stress, and seriously not wanting to kill them we irrigated the bottom two blocks for about 6 hours. This will also have helped to take the nutrients into the root zone in a liquid form. We're generally not keen on irrigation at this stage, but we felt a bit of water was vital to help the weaker vines. Vigour at this stage in the strong vines is not an issue, as berry set is finished, so the number of cells per berry is determined. Irrigation now will not increase this. Cellular enlargement does not occur until veraison, so water now will also not boost this too much. Plus, as mentioned above, some of the canopies are a bit sparse due to the fact that we have only one shoot per bearing position this season. A bit of water will hopefully promote side shoot and leaf development to assist the vines and give a bit more shade. We have only needed to tip and top once so far, and are happy with this. The water stress has helped quite a bit with keeping the vigour in check. Tipping and topping works by removing the main demand point of a vigourous shoot, the apical meristem. When we remove it, the shoot stops growing. The meristem releases hormones that inhibit the rest of the shoot, by removing it the hormones it produced over the previous few weeks are still in the shoot. For this reason the shoot stands still for a week or two after tipping/topping until the hormones have been worked out of the system. Tipping is better than topping, as the action leaves the young leaves that will provide sugars for the plant. We have had no problems with fungal disease to date. The weather and our site (good constant wind) have seen to that. The next thing we need to worry about is botrytis during ripening. We are looking at getting a stand alone weather station with all the necessary software to really monitor the mesoclimate of the vineyard. By knowing exactly what humidity, wind and temperature we are experiencing we can predict with some accuracy what diseases those conditions are likely to encourage. This will give us fair warning. Generally the 2000 Syrah was the least even of all the blocks, with a wider spread of vigour and development, with a small percentage of vines at each end of the spectrum. The 2000 Cabernet looked great, with perfect balance and even vigour throughout the blocks. To some eyes the canopy was too thin but as we would have more shoots next year the canopy will naturally be denser. We didn't want any unripe fruit so we will be careful not to overburden the vines this year. We were looking at around 3 tons per ha at the moment. The 2001 Syrah was looking great as well. J-C said he thought it was our most promising block at this stage, with a perfect balance even at this youthful state.
During the Christmas period we had the opportunity to taste the 2002 wine. If you remember we had not intended to make any wine in 2002. Manie started cutting the flowers off, but then a second flowering occurred and we decided to go for it, just to see what the result would be. These grapes were very late and very small. Also the Syrah were very blue. It will be interesting to see if this year's are the same colour. Anyway to cut a long story short we now have 2 barrels of Cabernet and one of Syrah sitting looking very lonely in a cellar built for 400. Although the occasion was approached with no pomp and ceremony we all looked at each other with trepidation as J-C siphoned three glasses of the red liquid from the barrels using a short length of garden hose (the "thief" had yet to arrive in the cellar equipment order). Nobody wanted to be the first to taste it and pass comment. It was fine for J-C as he couldn't exactly be blamed should the result be below par. He stood back to see what sort of fools Tom and John would make of themselves. This was after all the first time that either of them had tasted wine previously untried or judged by any other person. In the end we all agreed (as we only could) that the Syrah showed an incredible nose and the Cabernet was pretty complex. All very encouraging. Maybe it will be good enough to act as a prelude to the symphony we hope to be able to offer. Maybe even to tempt people to buy our wine in the future. We will bottle it towards the end of this year if all goes to plan. Between Christmas and New Year we had a lunch party in the garden of Villa Veriugli to thank those who had helped us thus far and to get to know more of the good souls of Tulbagh. The excitement started at 7.00am as Tom got the bonfire started. The kids were fully involved and there were shrieks of horror as two dead pigs arrived to be fixed to the spit roast. As they were bigger than expected and wouldn't fit Tom had to saw their heads off which caused more girlish squealing. By 8.00am the embers were being shoveled under the slowly turning beasts. Slow roasting over wood embers was the order of the day and under the careful directions of the Singing Chef the al fresco kitchen sprang into action. The Chef had marinated three guinea fowl in wine and herbs overnight and these were thrown into a cast iron cauldron standing in the embers. Soon smoke, flames and delicious smells filled the air. Lunch was due to be served at 1.30pm and it would take all of the 5 hours for the feast to reach perfection. While the experts dealt with the food Tom and John sorted the tables, the cutlery, the beer and most importantly the wine. We had a dozen bottles of Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc, a dozen Mulderbosch wooded Sauvignon Blanc, a dozen Buitenverwachting Chardonnay, a dozen Rupert and Rothschild Classique, a dozen Barefoot Shiraz and a dozen Lievland Syrah. Five slabs of beer and a dozen Krone Borealis completed the drinks list. A feast fit for a very thirsty and hungry King. The first guests arrived at 12.30 and it all started in a very civilized fashion with a little speech from Tom. By 9.00pm the descent had been rapid and complete. Most of the 35 guests were still at large and most of them had been in the pool. The kid's water slide was in full use. The run off area was fine for seven year olds but was a little short for grown ups, many of whom ended up bouncing on their backsides through the light scrub. The sight of Miss Tulbagh stumbling about in the gloaming clad only in what appeared to be a layer of mud and grass was one to behold (sorry no pictures). However by midnight there was only a hard core left. In the morning the damage was there for all to see. The pool had a thick layer of grass and mud floating on the surface while the pump manfully churned on. Tom had vague memories of Manie clad only in a dubious pair of boxers heading for home across the fields through barbed wire fences and indigenous thorn bushes. Sure enough there were his boots and clothes scattered on the lawn. Jane patiently tended to his wounds. John had been swimming with much expensive communications hardware in his pockets and was out of touch with the markets for the first time in twenty years. Tom had lost count of the number of times he fell into the ice bath reaching for the last of the wine. Maybe that was why he was spotted by a female house guest running naked up the corridor shouting "Anyone seen my schlonger". John was woken in the early hours by the sounds of crunching and growling as some animal tried to make off with the carcasses. Or was it Tulbagh Man with the munchies? The only one laughing the next day was Mrs. G-W. With a shrewd eye to the future she had explained at an early stage in the planning of this fiesta that she wanted nothing to do with the invitations, the cooking or the clearing up. This was to be organized and run exclusively by the men. It was to be a man's thing. Fortunately we had enlisted the the Singing Chef to prepare the food, who was fantastic, not just at cooking but at arias to entertain us. Although Mrs. G-W was responsible for the consumption of most of the Krone Borealis she never gets a headache no matter how much of it she drinks. So she had the last laugh observing from the hammock as the men folk staggered around in the bright sunlight scraping pig fat off the braai and scooping clothes and other objects from the pool. And those are the memories we have of December 2002. We believe we are on the cusp of something special. We are very lucky. We have great support from Manie, Jane and the deeply knowledgeable J-C. We have a great team of staff under Saansie and some great friends in Tulbagh. If it isn't a success we will still have great fun and enjoy life to the full.
By the way we must thank Platters Guide (the ONLY guide to SA wine worth buying) for their skillful and considered write up on us. It is a gift to get across what you want to say in 10 lines (one that we shall never be accused of having). Yes this is an "ad"venture. Much more exciting and emotional than anything our drier cohabitants of the City would simply call a venture. Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved. |
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