Iced grapes

For Celia, at Rickety Bridge harvest time held other problems. It is traditional that the grapes must all be picked before Easter and temperatures at that time of the year can be high and unsuitable for grape storage and processing. Before the Tonkins built the new cellar, the old cellar’s cooling system was anything but perfect and had to be supported on hot days by whatever ice could be made or acquired. Celia remembers sending the bakkie to Paarl to collect bags of ice, half of which had melted by the time the bakkie returned.

The pipes laid for irrigation had not been buried but were lying on the surface and as they sweated in the night the moisture attracted small animals that gnawed the pipes, making repairs to the lines an ongoing feature of life at Rickety Bridge until the pipes were safely buried.

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Paulina's ghost at Rickety Bridge

Carrying on with Celia at the wine farm.

Being marketing minded, Celia promoted the idea of Paulina’s ghost being around, telling clients at the tasting that if they drank enough wine they might be able to see Paulina. While people laughed, the idea stuck and became legend but backlashed at harvest time.

In those days it was fashionable to harvest at midnight and the pickers felt the clammy hand of a ghost in every breath of breeze and heard the rustle of a spectre’s dress in each flutter of the leaves. Celia spent a good deal of time reassuring nervous wide eyed pickers that they were not about to be snatched into another world. 

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Carry on at Rickety Bridge

The Tonkins at Rickety Bridge highlights the enjoyment I had as a freelance journalist and reading over my notes about the Tonkins brings back all the fun. First some facts:-

In 1997, the Tonkins, Alan and Celia, took over Rickety Bridge farm. Celia told me the house was gorgeous but the cellar was broken down and little more then a shed with vats in it.

While the farm was hard work, it produced well. 

The cellar, however, was totally inadequate for producing the award winning quality wines the Tonkins were aiming at and, in 1997-98, the Tonkins built a new boutique cellar, installing state of the art wine pressing and cooling, at a total cost in excess of R6 million.

They produced Sémillon, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a Shiraz and were the first to introduce the red blend Paulina’s Reserve.

During their time at Rickety Bridge the Tonkins won a number of awards for their wine.

In 1996 Silver medal         ’96 vintage Chardonnay

             Silver medal         ’95 vintage Cabernet Sauvignon

             Bronze medal       ’96 vintage Semillon

             Bronze medal       ’96 vintage Sauvignon Blanc

             Bronze medal       ’95 vintage Merlot

In 1998 Double gold         ’96 vintage Paulina’s Reserve

            

In 1999 Michael Angelo International Wine Awards

    Double gold and best wine        ’98 Chiraz            

    Silver                   ’97 Chardonnay

             Silver medal        ’99 Sauvignon Blanc (My personal favourite  -SD)

            

Celia loved the place despite commenting that, at times, it was like living in a Carry On film. Wait for the next installment! 

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Forest fire

I just want to finish what Deborah wrote about her stay at Rickety Bridge before going on in my experience as a journalist to the next occupant of Rickety Bridge.
In an earlier note it was mentioned that firs had been planted on the slope to retain the soil but Deborah's experience highlighted that benefits come with responsibilities.

Two little boys from the farm one Saturday made a campfire and set the forest alight. Had the wind changed direction we might well have lost the house, so it was a few nasty hours. That prompted the beginning of removing the pine forest from the hill at the back of the house, and allowing the indigenous fynbos to regenerate. The pines had been planted ages ago and then not looked after so they were useless as a crop and a huge fire risk as well as being unhelpful to the original mountain flora.

It was all an education in itself, and there was so much good that could have been brought about had one been able to stay long enough.
The photo shows how the pines have been re-established on the slope behind the winery.

I've mentioned before that one stumbles across stories and this fire incident would make a great highlight if I were doing a novel about the winelands.Whether a literary agent would agree, I don't know. Two of the stories in Bees in my Bonnet were written to test the idea  but I was told, nobody buys books about South Africa unless they are written by Wilbur Smith.

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French Heritage

As a freelance journalist I found Deborah's letter about what she and Robin Singer did at Rickety Bridge a highlight and here is a bit more.

We tried very hard to keep the feeling of a family working farmhouse, vineyards and cellar  - in fact when people came to the tasting rooms we built onto the end of the old cellar, they all said how different it was from the other farms - more like France in feel. I suppose you could look at that in several ways - Franschhoek being so proud of its French heritage should have given that impression, even if we were trying to promote South African wine in its own right, but Rickety Bridge was the last of those small working farmhouse and cellar farms, and a little gem, so I am not altogether happy with the huge amount of development which has robbed it of that distinction, and lost forever that feeling which made it so very special.

We were so lucky in the people who helped us. Len Raymond, our builder, was a complete Cape Dutch fanatic, and his knowledge of the history and construction of these wonderful houses was a huge factor in lots of what we did. Rowan Pape was a marvellous architect with a real understanding of what would and would not work and given the passion which every one of us approached the project, how could we lose? I was very sad to have to leave it.   - especially to the ravages of conference-centre builders! Those places are two a penny in and around Franschhoek. Small is beautiful more often than we realise, and Rickety Bridge was unique.

Whether one agrees with Debs or not, progress marches on and business is business.

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I'm going to continue Deborah's tale of what they did at Rickety Bridge because it shows the care she and Robin took to restore the old house -  We discovered the lintel of an old high door going into the courtyard from the room behind the voorkamer (front reception room) so we reinstated that and the bakeoven, and having discovered the original lintels in the front windows, we put those back to their original size, gave them wide reveals to let in more light, and reglazed them with old glass which made a huge difference.

We had the wall cupboard taken out and carefully restored before lovingly putting it back safely in its place. The kitchen and laundry rooms were rebuilt as plumbing etc had to be rethought, and the gable was restored to its proper proportions.

All the woodwork which we had to replace or put in new was done with indigenous  wood, as the Baltic pine which would have been used was not obtainable. We had all the door furniture carefully made as it would have been for the period.

We think that originally there must have been a screen going across the voorkamer at the front door end, but could find no trace of it. Many of them were removed and sold over the years, and sadly we thought that one must be lost entirely.

 Upstairs we had to compromise, as Cape Dutch houses would not have had bathrooms. (I had a gentle battle with Rowan Pape, our excellent architect who suggested marble for the bathrooms and when I said "no hotel bathrooms in this house" he kindly agreed to try the Johnstons white tiles laid diamond shape I asked for.  (I hope they are still there at Rickety Bridge, echoing the lines of the thatch.) (They are, or were in 2005)

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