June 2000
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Water, Water, everywhere... Please double click on images to enlarge The whole valley had been waiting for cooler weather and some rain. The fruit growers needed it badly for their trees. It seemed winter was delaying its arrival at the party, like royalty waiting until the most auspicious moment to cross the threshold.
Now we had water everywhere. Every stream was bursting its banks, flooding into the pastures and washing away precious top soil. The servitude channel that takes water to our neighbour couldn't cope and was washing across the farm track and into the paddocks.
There was water flowing everywhere except, that is, into the new dam. Apart from the rain that was falling directly into it, and the water that had come so dangerously down the channel until it was blocked, it was getting nothing. We had to control the flow. Our binary system of either fully on or fully off was obviously not ideal. Into the telephone box again for Manie. This time to reappear as Super Civ the water engineer. In no time at all he had designed and ordered four huge sluice gates to control the rushing turbulence. They'll probably arrive with the summer sun. Through all this Manie was completely unperturbed. Being a country man and particularly an African he relished the challenge that nature threw at him. He enjoyed pitting his wits and not inconsiderable muscle against the elements. In one conversation with him John expressed his fear of losing our whole investment down the hill if the dams burst, "Floods, bushfires, gales and pestilence all come with the territory" he said, biblically. John could imagine him smiling on the other end of the line knowing he was one-nil up in the battle against nature. He was also probably chuckling at us, newcomers as we are to the might of nature in Africa. All John was worrying about was which of these disasters would get past the defenses. To aid us planning our vineyard we are very lucky to have different soil types, aspects, slopes and microclimates dotted around the farm. We dragged out the soil map and poured over it, imagining which slope would yield that elixir we were dreaming of. Planting just 4 hectares this year out of a prospective 30 has left us plenty of room for mixing it up as we gain experience and knowledge. We think "mixing it up" is the key. Decide where the best soil on the farm is, then vary as much as possible the location of the individual vineyards. Planting large blocks of a single variety leads to greater economies of scale especially when it comes to irrigation and wind breaks, but where is the scope for the cellar man to experiment? Either the whole lot will be good or less than good depending on the vagaries of the vintage. We want to mix up as far as possible the variations of terroir available to us and maybe we will find a small plot that yields a truly exceptional wine. As our planting so far has been on the northwest facing slopes on the southern boundary we looked at the steep southwest facing slopes on the northern boundary as a possible small plot target. The same top quality Glenrosa soil but maybe a cooler later ripening area. It would certainly be a different microclimate, being more sheltered from the wind and getting shade early in the evening and sun later in the morning. After the excitement and worry of the flooding it was lovely to drift into a reverie thinking about the potential fruits of our labours. Not much dreamtime for Manie and the team though. They have to lay out the vineyard for our new arrivals.
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