Durbanville winery Diemersdal
On top of Glory Hill
An elevated site on Durbanville farm Diemersdal provided grapes for its Shiraz 2007, winner of the 2009 WINE magazine Shiraz Challenge. By Maryke Visagie.
"Well, now, this is surprising," Diemersdal's Thys Louw scratches his head. "First a fivestar rating in a WINE magazine tasting, now this."
We head out of the tasting room, down the stairs, to pay a visit to the hill that is home to the vines that yielded the Shiraz 2007, winner of the 2009 WINE magazine Shiraz Challenge. Just a month ago, their Private Collection 2006, was awarded five stars in our Bordeaux-style red blend category tasting (see the August issue).
"This messes up my plans, you know," he says as he opens the passenger door of his bakkie.
"I wanted to be known as a Sauvignon Blanc specialist." He thinks for a while as we drive in silence, and then pipes up: "Maybe this means we should also focus on building a name in red wine. Yeah, I think so." The grapes have spoken, it seems. Sauvignon Blanc or no Sauvignon Blanc, there are some darn good reds coming from the rolling hills of Durbanville. "Optimally ripe dark fruit," the tasting notes recorded in the Shiraz Challenge read. "Clean and pure with juicy fruit, fresh acidity and firm, fine tannins. A well balanced, seamless wine." It is described as a modern, accessible example of Shiraz that stood out in "a sea of rather monolithic wines" for its clean, pure fruit expression and technical precision.
So frankly, Louw Jnr's problem seems like the kind any winemaker would like to have. He is the sixth generation Matthys Michael Louw on the farm, with its family heritage dating back to the 19th century. An inventory of farm equipment dating back to the early 1700s, listing among other items a wine press and 45 wine vats, allude to the fact that wine was made here well before that time. The farm's name refers to a Dutch East India Company employee, a Captain Diemer, who in the 1700s called farewell to ocean life and lived on his farm with his beloved Anna Sneewind. Today the farm covers about 400ha of land, with 180ha planted under vineyard.
Louw Jnr joined the team in the cellar in 2005, after stints at Buitenverwachting and Jordan. "I leant most of what I know from Herman Kirschbaum at Buitenverwachting." Working with dad Tienie proved to be great and the two constantly exchange ideas, flanked by winemaker Mari van der Merwe. "Although, these days my dad comes in for a cup of coffee in the morning, but that's about it. He leaves me and Mari to do most of the work." Accolades like these should be reassuring to Tienie that their grapes are safe in the hands of the young ones.
"I think we should call this our ‘glory hill'," Thys smiles as he points out the winning block. "See, this road divides the hill into two blocks. On the left stand the vines carrying the Eight Rows Sauvignon Blanc, literally made from eight rows of vines, and on the right is the Shiraz." The east facing block is named Kweperboomblok, or "quince tree block", after the row of quince trees that line the block. The soil is a mix of Hutton, Clovelly, shale and disintegrated granite. It's not very high - only 250m above sea level - but in Thys's opinion this factor doesn't count for that much in wine growing areas close to the ocean. "Night temperatures are important here."
This is a block that has brought them success in the past, with an international award for Shiraz at the Santé Bloor- Yorkville competition in Canada. The vines are almost 11 years old and yield a fairly high average production of between 12 and 13 tons per hectare. Says Louw Jnr: "My dad believes that if you get a lower yield than that in Durbanville, you don't get good wine; it will be out of balance." And promptly, Louw Snr is summoned to reminisce over the vineyard. He planted it in 1989 with viticulturist Div van Niekerk, on what used to be a wheat field.
"Kosie Starke, legendary winemaker of Meerendal was my mentor in those days. He always used to say ‘look to the soil'. This is fairly fertile soil for Shiraz and if one doesn't take precaution, it can easily carry up to 20 tons per hectare. You have to limit production through width between vines and pruning, and strive to find a balance between leaves and fruit. And the smaller the berries, the better."
Vines planted in the north-south direction also seem to do well in this area and there is no irrigation practiced anywhere on the farm. Our average rainfall is about 680mm per year, compared to the 350mm of Malmesbury or 250mm of Vredendal." So maybe the Kweperboomblok holds the magic, because no matter how much one pries and cajoles, Thys maintains they do nothing special in the cellar. "It is a Shiraz made in the traditional style. If we had any cellar secrets, I would tell you, but we don't." The one thing he does insist on, is having cellar personnel working night shift during harvest, to get the pumpovers just right. "And we do give a lot of air during fermentation." The wine was pressed through every four hours and malolactic fermentation didn't take place in barrel, rather, the wine was pumped into 225 litre French oak barrels only after this fermentation was completed. It was bottled after 14 months.
Maybe it's the female touch, Louw Jnr grins, as 2007 also marked Mari van der Merwe's arrival at the cellar from Bovlei in Wellington. "This wine is as much Mari's as it is mine.
"We try not to go too New World," says Van der Merwe. "Our climate simply doesn't allow it. Louw Jnr agrees. "I guess we just do the basics right. There has been a trend to make these over-extracted flavour explosions over the last few years, but we just focus on the basics, the traditional style of winemaking. And it has paid off ." And since this Shiraz is a food wine, he says he'll serve it with any venison dish, or maybe a plate of saucy, steaming waterblommetjiebredie.
The Louws and Van der Merwe have big plans for this Durbanville winery. The red wine cellar recently enjoyed an overhaul and expansion and they have made the world's first Sauvignon Blanc Rosé, which sees Sauvignon Blanc blended with a small proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon to give the wine its pink colour - a method they patented. "It sells like hotcakes," says Thys.
Their joint venture "Sir Lambert" range, made from grapes growing right next to the Atlantic Ocean just outside Lamberts Bay, is doing extremely well. Tourism is looking good and, despite the current economic downturn, it seems people are flocking to the cellar. According to Tienie visits to the tasting room are about 35% higher than the previous season. Of course the five stars didn't hurt. "We had over 70 phone calls in the week the news broke." And 2009 is promising to be even better.
"The quality of the grapes was excellent and everything went well in the cellar," says Van der Merwe. With this vintage billed as an excellent one for Sauvignon Blanc in particular, there's every chance you'll be hearing more about Diemersdal soon.
