Paulinasdal

SO much for the general history of South African wine after Waterloo. Let me concentrate on Rickety Bridge.

In 1831, Albertus Pepler married Paulina Maria Deborah de Villiers, the daughter of Paul de Villiers of Boschendal and the couple moved into the new manor house on what was, at that time, part of a bigger farm called Zanddrift, owned by Albertus's mother, Elizabeth Catharina, the widow Pepler.

 Two years later, in 1833, to adapt to the changing conditions when Britain reduced the tariff on French wines, Elisabeth Catharina extended her holdings by 81 morgen of grazing land, giving the whole the name Zanddrift and seems to have used her son, Albertus, as farm manager.

In 1836 Paulina died at the age of twenty-six and, in her memory, her husband changed the name of the enlarged farm from Zanddrift to Paulina’s Dal, the change being recorded on several maps and documents.

The picture is looking up the valley from the manor house towards Franschhoek.

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My research into Rickety Bridge and the state of the South African wine industry uncovered the unscrupulous dealings in all kinds of rot gut during the Napoleonic wars, which almost finished that industry when Napoleon was defeated and French wine became available in Britain. One must remember that soldiering often exposed soldiers to water of doubtful quality and, those who could afford it drank wine, even rot gut in preference to what could be scooped out of the open sewers that were rivers in those days. The result was that South African wine, quite deservedly gained a reputation fr being undrinkable except 'in extremis' and the farmers, like the Pepplers at what would become Rickety Bridge, were forced to turn turn to alternative crops - like milk and pork.
The picture is of the Rickety Bridge the winery is now named after.

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Details of Kononkop canon

Rather than write about the old Napoleonic war canon at Cape Town, I thought I'd just put the details on display.

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