May 2002
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News just in from Australia.... An Australian-rules football player Thursday began a 10-week suspension from the game for biting the testicle of an opponent in an on field attack he said was "in no way premeditated or malicious". Peter Filandia pleaded guilty to biting Chad Davis' scrotum but vowed to continue as captain of his Melbourne club. "It was a split second decision made in a state of panic," he told a disciplinary tribunal Wednesday night.... (Bloomberg News, 2 May 2002) So be warned if any panicky looking Australians approach you. Of course we are worried that there may be many panicking, scrotum chewing Australian wine makers in the near future. Having planted the southern half the country with vines they are now starting to find irrigating them as well as watering the human population a problem. Wine production has increased more than 50% in the last five years. There is going to be a big glut of Aussie (red) wine and a shortage of water. "Let them drink wine!" might be appropriate. The influence in the last 10 years that Aussie wine makers have had on the global scene cannot be overestimated and the great success story of Aussie wine over the last twenty years has been its accessibility and appeal in the mid range area. To the outside world the Australian wine industry has presented itself as a unified and efficient marketing force, probably because the industry is dominated by one powerful group and another couple of other big companies. The sensible idea was to get people drinking Aussie wine because it was Aussie and then introduce them to the subtle or less subtle variations. But the question is now how can a producer in Oz differentiate himself from the mass. There was an article in Wine Spectator about a winemaker who had worked many years making varietal wine for one of the big giants and wanted now to "head for the cool hills where I can make an individual and terroir influenced wine". He was proud of the fact he was building a small cheap shed to house his 150 ton cellar, but it was still going to lay him back US$1.5m for the cellar alone. Either he had been saving for a long time or he had built such a good reputation that there were some willing backers. In SA we are lucky that start up costs are lower and the world is on the look out for something different. Maybe the Age of the Aussie is on the wane or maybe not. They are strong and resourceful but SA has never had a better chance against them. Lets grab it before they bite back! Such is the interest in SA vineyards now that never a month goes by without someone contacting us through this site saying they are starting up or us hearing of new investment coming in, mainly from the UK. The Cape is an absolute natural haven for the enterprising City wine lover with a bit of retirement money to splash. The ones we know are all in it for the right reasons and are deadly serious. All of them are tired of homogenized wine and truly believe they can make something great and something different. The other factors are an appeal to their sense of adventure, the time zone and the low value of the Rand. Basically it's a good (fun) risk. This is great news for talented young winemakers of the Cape. As far as our own search for a young person to love our vines and make our wine was going, it was hotting up. The consultancy arrangement we had with one particularly talented young man was dissolved as he was offered an excellent permanent position in a big project being set up and run by a friend of ours and involving new investment from a UK group. The idea was to have had him consult for us while we introduced an as yet untested young full time winemaker. Now we had a choice. Should we take a completely green local person straight out of college or should we tempt an experienced hand out of a successful South African cellar? Should we bring in one of our contacts from Europe to work the first harvest? Should we form a joint venture with a French producer so that his people could work the Southern season? There were many choices now available to us. In the end we decided the most important thing was to have our own TMV identity. This was paramount. If we could indeed tempt some super star from their current situation the start of TMV would always be associated with their name. If we brought in seasonal foreign talent there would be no consistency over the first few years which is vital to the buyer. If we formed a joint venture with an established French producer then we would be in their shadow. At least we should look at who was coming out of college in SA or had recently graduated and was looking for a chance. Dr JP Lombard of Stellenbosch University and Pieter de Wet of Elsenberg College were extremely helpful in getting interested candidates to approach us for interview. The standard was high and the enthusiasm was certainly there. We also interviewed a couple of more experienced candidates. What was interesting was that there were very few candidates who were lovers of vines who also had an idea of what was required in the cellar. In fact most of them had a good deal of cellar expertise but seemed a bit lost in the vineyard. What came across was specialization into either viticulture or winemaking that seemed to take place at an early stage in the education of these people. To be fair most of them would find jobs in massive organizations where they needed to fill a distinct role, but for us we needed someone who loved vines and understood how to get the best out of them, and could also make our wine. We were in the end fortunate to get our man. He has worked part time in some great cellars but his love is the vine. In fact we knew we had the right guy when he invented a new term for his position with us - "Winegrower". From now on that is how the position at TMV will be known. As he is finishing his degree this year and has never worked as a full time employee we are taking a big chance, but so is he with us. The great opportunity for him is the chance to shape his future. The cellar is just four walls and the vineyard is in its infancy. All those dreams of "If I could do it my way I would have blah blah" are now reality. The cellar will never be built again so he has the chance to influence the style and capability of it. The vineyard will respond to attention at this early stage of its life so the formation of each vine is in his hands. There can be few chances such as this for a person straight out of university. We would not have gone down this route and taken this chance had the person with the right attitude and knowledge not presented himself to us, so we are grateful that he did. He and TMV will grow together. And we are glad to say he is a South African. In the course of interviewing candidates for the position we learned a few of the potential dangers and pitfalls of being a "cellar rat". There was one story about a cellar that at one particular harvest became very tight on fermentation space. The cabernet were rolling in from the vineyards and there was no where to put it. It had to be dealt with as it was sitting in large bins cooking in the hot sun. The only vessel not being used was the very expensive bladder press, so the grapes were crushed into that and it was sealed up. Unfortunately no one noticed that the pressure release valve wasn't working and the thing slowly built up pressure like a bomb. When the boss came back after a few hours to inspect the ferment he couldn't open the inspection hatch so he took a lump of 4 by 2 to the catch. When it did release he and the 4 x 2 were blown 10 feet into the air as the pressure was released and it sounded and looked as if someone had shot him. There was also a story of Pinotage must being pumped from the crusher to the fermenter when unknown to the operator a lump of skins got stuck at a join in the pipe. The calm was shattered as the pipe burst and lashed like a demonic snake against the wall while 5000 litres of red skins, pips and juice were plastered all over the floor, walls, ceiling and workers. Then there were more serious accidents where men punching down into open fermenters lost their footing and fell in. Apparently not only did they drown through CO2 asphyxiation but the men who tried to rescue them did as well. The only thing to do is have harnesses suspended from a runner to prevent the guys from falling so far in that their heads go below the CO2 layer on top of the skins. Apparently there are several deaths every year in the industry when people unknowingly enter a nitrogen filled tank to inspect or clean it. Asphyxiation is swift and silent. Chastened by these tales we pressed on with the construction of our own Bacchanalian cathedral. By the end of the month it really was taking shape, especially the "Club Room". This mezzanine, which would also contain the office, was to be our thinking and entertaining space. Mrs G-W was buzzing round it like a cat on hot tiles. The long suffering builder was following trying to keep a hold on what had just been decided on only to realize that it had all changed again. Manie decided to concentrate all their minds and spent half the night constructing a cardboard scale model of what it would look like. An astounding feat of dexterity and dedication. Tom told him he should get a job on one of those children's television programs where they make highly complex machinery out of cardboard, rubber bands and sticky backed plastic. "And here's one I made earlier" was the cry. Tom soon had his comeuppance as he was dragged away on a search for tiles, lighting and sanitary ware on a very rainy day at Paarden Eiland.
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