Nancy Richards travels the Green Wine Route and visits Biodynamic Waterkloof in Somerset West.
Biodynamic Waterkloof
Ever since seeing pictures of the big white Percherons on the estate, I’d longed to go to Waterkloof wine estate outside Somerset West. The moment finally came with a booking for a Circle of Life Biodynamic tour guided by farm manager Christiaan Loots.
Here since 2004, Christiaan turned the 75ha estate organic in 2007, biodynamic in 2008, with certification since 2013. Luckily he and Paul Boutinot, owner of the estate, are on the same page in their commitment to enviro-ethics.
“When we started to farm biodynamically, grape tonnage plummeted. By the third year, once we’d put life back in the soil, things improved, and by the fifth year there was an explosion of earthworms and the soil was rich and penetrable so that horses could plough.”
Biodynamics, explains this patient land activist, is the culture of hand-in-glove farming with nature in all its symbiotic diversity – cows supply dung for compost, milk for cheese, whey for fertiliser; sheep and chickens help with weed and pest control and give more dung; horses have zero carbon-footprint energy; plant material from the veg garden goes back into the land and the moon delivers gravitational pull.
The tractor tour bounces us up to the horse-resting paddock – bless their peaceful presence – and from here we climb up to the peak overlooking False Bay and surrounding valleys. About half the estate is given over to fynbos, here in swathes beneath our feet. We zig-zag down past the cow-pat pit-manure and comfrey patches, through undulating blocks of spreading vines, finally coming to a stop at a shed full of fermenting barrels and bottles. This is Christiaan’s bio-lab where he produces super-efficient microbe preparations from anchovies, chillis, garlic and molasses.
With heads cleared by their pungent fragrance and the wind – for which the mountain estate is famous – but newly filled with information on permaculture, silica, sulphur, sandstone and fertility, it was time to try one of the products – an elegant red blend called, unsurprisingly, Circle of Life.
Visitor Tips
- The seasonal once-a-month Circle of Life Biodynamic tours start in September 2016, booking essential.
- There’s wine tasting or lunch in the glass-fronted restaurant that hovers over a breathtaking stretch of fecundity.
- Sir Lowry’s Pass Road, Somerset West, Cape Town 7129 T 021 858 1491 visit
Nancy Richards visited 4 of the 35 Champion Wine Estates listed on theNedbank Green Wine Route.
1. Vondeling Wines – Flowering Vondeling
2. Waterkloof – Biodynamic Waterkloof
3. Backsberg Estate Cellar – Back to Bark
4. Bartinney Private Cellars – Fynbos Family Bartinney
We are posting these over the next few days, but if you want to access the info, which includes useful visitor tips, you can visit Country Life.
Pictures: John-Clive
