Talking of wine

I told you there was something special ab out the way the Delta winery was organised and, like everything there, Hiervandaan red wine has a story. Marq, a descendent of the de Villiers, who were earlier owners of Delta (Paulina of Rickety Bridge being one of that ilk), came from Canada to research his family history. Talking to a worker on a nearby farm, Marc mentioned that his family had farmed the area for three hundred years. The labourer, having Koi ancestry, replied that his family had been Hiervandaan (from hereabouts) since “Sommer altyd” (for ever just) and the name for the wine wa born. That's the kind of association Mark Solms brought to Delta.

The Lekkerwijn rosé label was signed with the mark of the 1690 owner of a nearby farm slain by Silberbach, one of the early joint owners of Delta. The dispute in which the unfortunate neighbour died is reputed to have been over Silberbach’s wife Ansela, a freed slave.

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Making Biblical wine

As to wine at Delta, the Solms family had been making it in Germany long before the first Solms left for southern Africa seven generations before Mark, Delta's current owner was born. Mark took over in 2002 and set about learning what he could about wine making, not just from modern technology but from Biblical times. He told me he felt that the art of making wine for the senators and pharaohs of the ancient world died with, among other things, the the Barbarian Invasion of Rome. What survived during their occupation was how to make house wine. Well, what else would you serve to barbarians?

I didn't mention that at least some of the invaders were Celts and probably drank whisky.

Let me get back to the theme, the benefits of Mark’s researches into the methods of the ancients enhance his new wine, a Shiraz Afrikana to be launched in September.

At that time, 2002, there were three Delta products to choose from, all containing blends of the Rhône type grapes Mark has grown to supplement the traditional Cape varieties, believing Rhône vines are more suited to the Cape’s dry summers than those originating from the wetter climate and more generous soils of France.

My wife was with me and enjoying Mark's company and, hereabouts, there was more to come. 

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Conservation, Trees at Delta Solms winery

AT Delta Solms the wine tasting is inside the museum but let me first talk about the trees and woods that have been exposed and put to use now that the invaders have been repelled. 

All the trees are tagged, including the National Champion oak tree in front of the house planted around the time the farm was first occupied in 1690.

Mark Solms, the owner was kind enough to show us round. First stop was the clump of giant Chinese bamboo, light and strong, planted to provide roof trusses. They form a secret alcove where, to the accompaniment of the chimes of the bamboo, Tracy, from the museum, told stories of long ago to school groups.

Where the undergrowth had been cleared, sapling yellowwoods have sprouted, camphor trees grow to monster size.
Originally farm concessions were given out on the understanding that if a tree was cut down, one would be planted to take its place, while not always adhered to, this resulted in the planting of a variety of oak trees. Not just gnarled monsters that a Cavalier king could hide in, but reminders of the tall straight forest giants felled two centuries ago to provide planks for the ‘Hearts of Oak’ of the British navy.
The pictures are of my wife and Mark in the bamboo grove and the other, believe it or not, is an oak.

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Khoisan and Japanese relics

At Delta Solms, when the archaeologists started to dig they found not just the remains of an old building but also relics of a past civilisation dating back to the Late Stone Age. I found it fascinating to imagine how ancient hands had made and worked with the relics. It was all described in the museum’s display cabinets and panels and but what made it more mystic was that I was transported into their world by the haunting voice over of a Khoisan storyteller.

The cabinets also hold Japanese ceramics from the days when the farm was founded in 1690 under the Dutch East India Company, the cheaper Chinese pottery of later British times, mixed with some produced in England and forced on the colonies by the East India Company and the Westminster government’s policy of trade monopoly.

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Delta Winery History at every turn

I'd often passed the Delta winery on my way from Stellenbosch to Franschhoek but when I eventually found my way there I found the winery worth a visit but the people fascinating. The turn off is just after crossing the Dwaarse River bridge on the Franschhoek road and lies at the end of a long driveway. The first person I met was Tracey Randle, a vivacious young ‘girl next door’, who already had a master’s degree in history and archaeology and was busy with a PhD. The museum she was in charge of had its beginnings in the Mark Solms, the owner's interest in archaeology and his desire to tell the real story of the Cape of Good Hope in a way that people could relate to. Mark was, at that time, and may still be, a professor who consulted at Groote Schuur. Mark sought advice from historians, archaeologists and conservation architects and when Dr Antonia Malan looked the place over she commented that the reason for the distance between the old wine cellar, which housed the museum, and the main house being more than normal was probably because there had been a building in between. That's only the beginning. There's more history and historical events being played out at Delta than you could shake a stick at.

The picture is what the archaeologists found between the main house and the museum. 

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Cowboys at Kersefontein

When I visited a recent innovation at the farm was horse riding, not on regulated trails but real cowboy stuff. Telling us about it Julian said he told riders ‘there are some cattle over there on the horizon go and fetch them, I’ll go round left, you go right and we’ll meet over there’. This allowed the riders to choose their route and made it far more interesting.

To add to the feeling of the old West Julian had some wild horses on the farm which Tertius Swart from Bloemfontein, South Africa’s own horse whisperer had tamed.

As soon as the sun had warmed the wheat, Julian was impatient to get on with the harvest but, as we walked along the passageway past that skull, he mentioned it was that of the last Hippo shot in the Cape Peninsula in 1869 and was apparently shot in the Berg river where it flows in front of the house lawns.

As we walked out, Julian casually pointed out a row of guns one of which shot the last hippo. The gun was made by Joseph Manton, London in the late 1700’s and was given to Julian’s great-great-great-grandfather by the Earl of Caledon, the Cape Governor.

At that time the approach in the brochure was via Malmesbury and Hopefield, a charming drive through grape and wheat country. You could return via Velddrif and the R27 coast road giving you the option of visits to the coastal towns along the way but it is noticeably longer.

You could fly yourself in and land on the farm's strip but, before you submit your flight plan, you'll have to check with Julian.

www.kersefontein.co.za

Classical music

Browsing through the Kersefontein notes I found in my interview with the owner, Julian Melck, that for his birthday he had not rushed off to climb Kilimanjaro (which he said was on his bucket list) or dashed into the air to jump out of a plane but had held a Prom on the front lawn. Invited guests were properly dressed in evening clothes and long dresses and those form the forces in Best Blues while Justin conducted a n orchestra n Brahms, Bizet, Greig and Lloyd Weber. All this on a holiday venue on the banks of the Orange River. Fantastic! And The file is not closed!

www.kersefontein.co.za