Bruwer Raats
Delaire's Winemaker
Delaire's Bruwer Raats remembers his epiphany as a seven-year-old, while hiking with his father, on reaching the summit of the Botmaskop mountain. Now, years later, he says he's integrated himself into the fragile balance of this mountain's terroir. Leonie Joubert talks to one of last year's entrants in the Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year Award.
The ancient Chinese philosophy of Confucianism acknowledges the delicate interrelatedness of the forces of nature and the perfect balance between opposite extremes - in short, Yin and Yang. These days young Westerners, often left cold (and bored) by conventional religion practised by their forebears, are tapping into Eastern thinking to find some explanation for this crazy world.
Delaire's Bruwer Raats has unconsciously hybridised a bit of this philosophy with the accepted conventions of terroir in his approach to winemaking on the slopes of the Botmaskop mountain outside Stellenbosch (Helshoogte Pass).
"I think the winemaker must be part of the terroir," Raats explains. So, in order to become as integral to Delaire's terroir equation as the soil, slope, aspect and microclimate, Raats felt that if he were to take the job of winemaker he would have to live on the farm. The panoramic vistas of the nearby Franschhoek valley may not have had anything to do with it.
He's also convinced this thinking extends to the rest of the team involved in producing the wine:
"There are things about wine that you can't touch or see - you can only feel them," he maintains. Negative energy in the team dynamic can impact on the product.
He's entering his sixth year with the cellar and there are less ethereal things happening.
Raats arrived on the farm one week before the 1997 harvest got underway. He says he found a 0,7 hectare block of Merlot on high-lying clay soils which was "just too good to go into the cellar's Cab/Merlot blend". So he harvested and vinified the block separately and started the single block vinification that is his trademark on the farm.
The experiment went something along these lines: keep every block separate; see which vineyards perform and which don't; remove the non-performers. After three varied vintages - 1997 was cool, '98 medium to hot and '99 a scorcher - he believed he had an idea of the farm's potential. He then removed about 45% of the vineyards and planted more appropriate varieties.
The farm's resulting prize fighters are the single vineyard selection Botmaskop Cabernet Sauvignon (reserved for exceptional years) from high up the Botmaskop slopes and the flagship single vineyard Merlot.
The equation has evolved somewhat in recent years: the winelist has been rationalised with Green Door, the second label, being put out to pasture; the export allocation has shifted from zero to 70%; and Raats is now contracted to the farm as a consultant and full time cellarmaster.
"I never set out to become a consultant," he explains. But after being approached by Neville Koudstaal from neighbouring Springrove to help make wine, Delaire boss Masoud Alikhani, said he'd prefer it if Raats consulted to both. After forming his own company (Magenta Wines) the list of clients grew to include Agusta and Cape Classics (the Indaba range). He claims that 50% of his time is dedicated to Delaire.
He's also a self-styled marketing manager for Delaire - a role he thrives on because it keeps him attuned to market demand. If he picks up a trend among consumers at a tasting in London he can immediately make the changes necessary in the cellar without the constraints of red tape or bureaucracy.
Then there's Raats Family Wines: Raats has teamed up with his older brother Jasper (former attorney and current winemaker at Sumaridge in Walker Bay) to start a private label. Currently consisting of a wooded and an unwooded Chenin - with a Cabernet Franc to join its ranks in future - this is the very tip of Bruwer Raats's dream.
"I don't want the hassles of farming, all that equipment and everything," he enthuses. "I just want a cellar and a tasting room - two or three hectares of land to build on."
"No, I don't want to work as a négociant… rather a producer because I still want to be in control of the vineyards."
Whether that is in line with the principle of integrating himself with the terroir is difficult to measure. But Raat's style owes more to his attention to detail in vineyard and people management and cellar technique than anything else.
