Nancy Richards travels the Green Wine Route and visits Vondeling Wines in Wellington.
Flowering Vondeling
“We’re a bit off the beaten track,” says Julian Johnsen with a grin when we finally get there. He wasn’t wrong. Vondeling wine estate, on the Voor Paardeberg section of the Paarl Wine Route, is somewhere between Wellington and Malmesbury, uncharted territory for us. Julian and his partners Anthony Ward and Richard Gower have 120ha under vine and 280ha fynbos spread over the Paardeberg mountain.
As he drives us around the land, Julian describes their minimum-intervention strategy, and strict waste- and water-management systems. “Over the last year, water levels dropped by nearly 50 per cent so we reuse every drop.”
They also co-exist with boomerang porcupines – “They just keep coming back no matter how far we take them!” – and wild peacock and baboons. More benign is their herd of suckling, black Angus cattle.
Julian shows us around the gracious 18th-century guest house, the barn converted into a rustic thatch chapelwith steeple and stained glass. “St Clement’s, where Pastor Benny Roberts comes to shepherd the staff, and Bridget to give lectures.” Julian’s wife Bridget, a former vet, is the green heart of the estate. Some years ago, in response to Al Gore’s call to combat climate change, she founded the Paardeberg Sustainability Institute (PSI) to protect both the land and its people.
Projects include the regional Fire Protection Association and the creation of “sustainable jobs in sustainable industries”. She talks passionately about teams busy with alien vegetation clearance, wood sales, chainsaw hire, honey farming, agritourism and fire management. But in the last few years, flowers also have been high on the agenda. “After the huge fire here in 2011, there was a phenomenal regeneration of fynbos which Anthony (Ward) suggested we record.”
So over a period of 18 months – two spring seasons – with botanists Greg Nicholson and Divan Roets and journalist Ruth Garland, the PSI collected, identified, photographed and pressed nearly 1 000 species. The result is a meticulously-filed collection in the farm’s field herbarium. A duplicate set was made for the Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch and, hot off the press, Bridget proudly shows us the first proof of a fine coffee-table book Fire to Flower: A Chronology after a Wildfire in Fynbos.
Displaying her passion, the walls in Vondeling’s reception and wine-tasting room are lined with portraits of the team on one side, flowers on the other. Two of their flagship wines are named after two species endemic to the Paardeberg mountain: Babiana noctiflora and Erica hippuris.
Visitor Tips
- Drop by for a wine tasting or vintner’s platter – best to book if you are many. On a regular basis, chef Bertus Basson produces a special Sunday lunch.
- Special mountain tours are available by appointment for amateur and specialist botanists.
- The venue, guest house and church are available for weddings.
- Off R45 towards Wellington 021 869 8339
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.
Words: Nancy Richards
Pictures: John-Clive
