December 2003
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Thanks December was with us again and it seemed but a twinkling of the eye since last December. Looking back, though, a lot had happened in the last twelve months, a great deal of it very positive. The most pleasing was the way J-C has settled in and taken responsibility in such an effective and quietly efficient manner. He has managed the staff in a sensitive and sensible fashion and been rewarded with loyalty and hard work. This time last year he was expecting to have Manie to work with and to be himself responsible only for the wine and the vines. In fact when Manie moved on to bigger projects elsewhere J-C turned out to be fully capable of managing the whole. In fact it became apparent that the holistic approach worked best. Of course you need someone who has a natural sense for what is important and is completely focused on quality in everything he does. In J-C TMV are lucky enough to have that person. He can't do it all himself, however, and without the right staff we would not have been able to progress. Saansie has also been a revelation, responding to the chance to take responsibility for the day to day running of the farm, putting J-C's ideas into practice efficiently and managing the show while J-C was in France.
To show appreciation for the efforts of the staff we had a braai and gave the staff a cash bonus. The practice in former years was to give the staff a present to the value of the bonus they were awarded. That worked fine when most of the staff lived on the farm and were less responsible for the running of their own lives. Except for Saansie and Michael all our guys live out. The staff are young but under Saansie's paternal guidance seem to be sensible. We have had no major problems and no reports of trouble from them or the police. Saansie is teetotal and a great example to the staff. A testimony to his tough love management is the 100% staff retention rate over the last 12 months, the fact that other farms are trying to poach him and that many more people than we employ want to work for him. Unlike some farms we employ our staff all year round. There are things to do on the farm even in the quiet winter months, we can build up and retain a good team, keep and eye on them and they feel their interests are tied to ours. It may seem strange that we should be apprehensive about giving a cash bonus, but it is not normal to do so. Most farm workers would not be trusted with a cash lump sum, but we felt that if you do not treat them as adults they probably will not act as adults. Having said that Saansie gave them a talking to about their responsibilities to themselves and their families and Tom G-W weighed in with his pep talk as well. We are also offering the staff written terms of employment as laid down in the farm workers' sectoral determination of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. This brings some regulation into the work place which protects staff, ensures a level playing field between employees and employers, hopefully makes them feel secure and provokes them to give us their best effort. When J-C was in France he got bitten by the boules (petanque) bug and brought a couple of sets back with him. At the staff braai everyone joined for a few games and our guys were surprisingly adept. Tom G-W was being so comprehensively beaten that he began to suspect that they had been spending too much time practicing. As a result they sensibly allowed him to win a couple of points. Maybe this will become the vineyard workers' sport of choice in Tulbagh and across the winelands of the Cape. It doesn't require much equipment, or a specially prepared surface as long as it is reasonably level and rough, can be played in any state of dress and is very social. TMV are open to challengers. Of course all these warm fuzzy feelings about our progress and J-C's skills would soon be dispelled if the wine was kak. Tom and John had not tasted vintage 2003 since May when it was very young and so now was the time to give it a go. It was decided to set up a serious tasting. J-C had a good idea what the wine was like, but wasn't saying anything ahead of the big tasting. The idea was to set up a blind tasting of three flights of four wines in each flight. There were four guest wines mixed in amongst the selection. These were top quality wines from the US, France, Spain and SA. The other eight were blends or single variety wines from our own vineyard, wine that J-C had vinified from bought in grapes and some repeats to keep us on our toes. Tom and John had no idea really what to expect as they sat down at a table in the middle of the cellar. The glasses of water and stainless steel "spittoons" as well as notepads and pencils made the occasion feel as it should, a very serious one. As J-C brought out the numbered glasses for the first flight even he was feeling nervous. Here was the result of his work since he became involved with the venture and the hopes and dreams of the two owners of the venture, not to mention their families who had been taken along for the ride over the last four years. It is no exaggeration to say that there was quite a lot at stake.
The tasting went well, that is to say Tom, John and J-C were nearly 100% in agreement about which wines they liked and which they did not. The scores out of 5 (without any consultation) were pretty consistent. Each person gave his reason for giving each wine the score he gave, and the names of the wines were not revealed until after the discussion for each flight. The close scores were a huge relief all round. Although they had spent many hours discussing likes and dislikes among wine styles Tom, John and J-C had never committed to paper in a blind tasting in front of each other. It was established then that they are all pulling in the same direction. How then did TMV wines fare? In general the overriding earthiness that was present when they were tasted in May had given a bit of ground to a lighter more perfumed nose, maybe with the oak influence of the past seven months, but was still present. The greenness had softened and there was more feel in the palate, especially at the end. The colour was still fairly light compared to some of the more heavily extracted wines that were in the tasting. J-C made up three different blends using TMV Syrah Cabernet and Mourvedre and one blend with just TMV Cabernet and Syrah. Out of the 12 wines top scores went to TMV Syrah Mourvedre Cabernet blend number 3, the De Toren Fusion V 2001, and the Merlot that J-C had bought in from Elgin and vinified. To give some comparisons our wine is not as heavily extracted as say the De Trafford Foundation Block Merlot that was in the tasting or yet as balanced as the De Toren Fusion V 2001. Overall, in this young state with probably another ten months in tight grained oak, Tom and John are very happy and J-C still has a job. Time will tell if it is a world beater but there is nothing wrong with it at the moment. Apart from all the serious stuff there was loads of fun and as usual some great parties. Nick Van Huisteen, who bought a big lump of the Tulbagh valley under the Sarenberg at the end of last year, gave a great New Year bash. These mining magnates from Pretoria do not hang around at all. In nine months he has built the most fabulous cellar and installed all the equipment necessary for a 350 ton harvest in 2004. It is not only a functioning cellar but a work of art. There is even space for an art gallery inside with views onto steel tanks on one side and oak storage on the other. He was ably assisted by Mr. Tulbagh himself Redvers Buller, who had been instrumental in getting us off the ground, but is doing things on an entirely different scale at an entirely different speed. Makes the Poms look quite a bunch of wimps in comparison.
The social swirl wasn't as mental as last year. Mrs. G-W was about to pop with her third boy, but there were a couple of civilized dinner parties and picnics under the lone tree, as well as visits from family across the seas. Pascale Schildt, his brother and his cousin joined us one evening. Pascale is a talented winemaker and marketing expert who has spent several years in Burgundy. He has some good ideas and is a great friend of J-C's. Over dinner and in subsequent discussions the idea was formulated to set up a joint venture between TMV, J-C and Pascale for part of the 2004 production. TMV would benefit from Pascale's talents and J-C and Pascale would be stakeholders in part of the vintage. TMV is very keen on experimentation, on developing ideas in wine style as well as labels and marketing so this joint venture with these "young guns" of the wine world is a great way of putting these ideas into practice. Eventually TMV will be known as a hotbed of radical wine ideas, so it is ideal for these young talents to have the freedom to express themselves while at the same time committing their own time and resources to the venture.
There were visits to other producers as well. Mike at Mulderbosch (and his dog Small Change - the most famous dog in the winelands) entertained us for a morning with his deep insights into the biochemistry of the vine. Most of it went straight over the heads of Tom and John who were seen nodding sagely while desperately trying to remember the difference between respiration, perspiration and transpiration. But J-C held it together and we all benefited from a few glasses of Mike's superb Barrel Fermented Chardonnay. That wine beats anything from Australia at any price and shows that if you really do know your Krebs Cycle from your bi-cycle you will succeed. We also rounded off pre lunch drinks with a bottle of Faithful Hound which is as laid back as the dog in the picture. Clinton, who works with Mike, then joined us for a great lunch at 96 Winery Road. We were also lucky enough to have a tour of Rustenberg. It is one of those beautiful estates that anyone who is interested in wine must visit once in their lifetime. The whole place is immaculate. Even the dairy cows appear to be individually groomed, and their paddocks are certainly individually irrigated. The whole farm was as green as Tulbagh was dusty brown. It was hard to believe we were in Africa. The place looked more like Devon on an English summer's day. Then you look up at the soaring mountains and the immaculate vineyards and you realize you are actually one step closer to heaven.
Willy at Weltevrede in the Paardeberg very kindly gave us a tour of his vineyards. The vines on these steep terraced slopes, grown organically and without trellising, with a permanent cover crops of herbs, wild flowers and lavender are a world away from the strict regimentation of Rustenberg, but they supply grapes to the producers of some of the finest red wines in SA. Willy is a remarkable man. The farm had previously been in the family and he reclaimed it, grew watermelons and vegetables to raise cash and over a period of several years planted all the vineyards from scratch. It was a great feat, and he now has some superb blocks and he can command good prices for his grapes. The 2004 vintage will be decided over the next few weeks so once again it is cross your fingers time. So much can go wrong with the weather, bugs and disease that we will need all the luck we can get. One thing we know though is that we have a committed, knowledgeable and dedicated crew to guide us.
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