In praise of the Paardeberg

"I had in farm in Afrikaaah, at the foot of the Ngong Hills,” was how Meryl Streep set the scene in Out of Africa. A film that had audiences reaching for the Kleenex when Robert Redford is killed in a fiery plane crash, an event that is likely to be repeated on the Paardeberg if those bushwhacking pilots who roar up the Siebritskloof, scaring chickens and horses, are not careful. For Swartland farmers are near the end of their tether with plans to build an ‘aviation estate’ in Malmesbury. A sort of Marina da Gama in the wheat fields, with Cessnas in place of canoes.

Part of the broad-based opposition to the plan was an overview of the mountain, written by Hermien Fourie. I was asked to write a foreword, which after much prodding, I duly did. Alas, the activists and lobbyists found it “most amusing and clever. But not, we worry, quite appropriate for Civil Aviation Authority and Province officials for whom the document has largely been written”.

The first funny thing about our mountain is its name. Paardeberg. Perdeberg. Horse Mountain. If you’re a joller, Partyberg, seems more appropriate. Pieter Euvrard from Orangerie coined that one.

When Kalmoesfontein winemaker Jasper Wickens thought about a birthday party, the clump of trees where Dutch-singing superstar Stef Bos tied the knot a couple of years back seemed like a good spot.

Strobe lights, an amp and giant speakers were hired and the party extended into a two-day rave. But when the Partyburghers returned after a refill run to Kalmoesfontein cellar, some partypooper had stolen the amp and lights, leaving the giant speakers behind to mock partygoers like so many monolithic statues on Easter Island.

Anyway, amplified tunes oftenot, Jasper’s joll continued until 6am. But the following week the birthday boy had to face the music and explain the missing equipment to the hire company.

For Big Schalk Burger, a gym analogy applies as our mountains, Groenberg, Kasteelberg and Paarlberg are “God doing push-ups” – this according to a man you don’t want to argue with. Although the mental image of the creator working out in Malmesbury is surely something to make Richard Dawkins go to church. Certainly these four mountains keep SA wine in shape as so many grapes from more fashionable appellations like Franschhoek and Cape Point are grown in our sandy soils.

Our mountain must have terroir with a capital T as it has attracted the most promising winemakers in SA: Eben Sadie, Adi Badenhorst, Callie Louw and Donovan Rall. We have a blou pypie on Lemoenfontein that’s so special, we turned it into a wine label. Instead of bats in the belfry, we have owls in the barn and a Cape cobra living in the roots of a centenarian oak.

We’re 15 minutes away from Riebeek Kasteel which has younger and better looking gays than Greyton (as Anton Espost memorably noted) and more inventive and better-priced food than Franschhoek. So the first three laws of estate agents are satisfied: location, location and location. Oh yes, we’re also less than an hour away from Cape Town if you need a curry in a hurry. But the best thing of all about our mountain are the people who live on it and who give it that indefinable gees.

For our mountain is a People’s Mountain. People who care about their environment, who care about their friends and who care enough about the future to want to preserve and nurture this cutting from the Garden of Eden at the southernmost tip of the world’s most exciting continent, Africa.