Vriesenhof's Jan 'Boland' Coetzee

Jan 'Boland' Coetzee

This month sees the rugby playing nations of the world gather in France to fight it out for the William Webb Ellis Trophy and bragging rights as World Champions. The link to wine? There will be three former Springboks sitting in the packed stands, who usually spend their days among the vines and in their cellars, making wine. Fiona McDonald interviewed Jan 'Boland' Coetzee of Vriesenhof.

The rugby legend precedes the man: that he was a powerhouse, a hard man of the game who could often be found "mixing it up" with his opponents while the ref was looking the other way. There's even an apocryphal tale of when boxer Kallie Knoetze was asked who hurt him the most - with Knoetze's reply being that it didn't happen in the boxing ring but on a rugby field, while he was playing for Northern Transvaal against Western Province, and the person behind the punch was Jan 'Boland'!

Coetzee just grins at that, neither denying nor confirming the rumour. He's a modest man, and his rugby memorabilia don't take pride of place at Vriesenhof, the Stellenbosch wine farm he's built up over the past 27 years. When asked for pictures to illustrate this article Coetzee has to hunt around to find material, flicking through piles of framed team photos in a metal trommel (trunk).

The statistics paint a modest picture: he only played six tests for the Springboks, with his first being against the 1974 British Lions, a team led by Willie John McBride that is still spoken of with awe. The flank was dropped - along with most of the team - but played again in 1975, coming on as a reserve versus the French, and then in the starting line-up in all four tests against Andy Leslie's 1976 All Black team.

A measure of the man is that this Lion of Coetzenburg played the entire 1976 season - including that memorable series - with a broken bone in his right elbow. "If Doc knew I was injured, I wouldn't have been able to play - and I wouldn't have made the Bok team for the series," Coetzee says, showing me a faint but lengthy scar on the inside of his arm.

One old rugby hand recalls that Jan 'Boland' wasn't a favoured 'bok and will always be remembered as more of a Western Province man, having been the first player in provincial history to wear the blue-and-white hooped jersey for more than 100 matches, finally retiring with his tally on 128.

Doc Craven wrote the following in the book Legends of Springbok Rugby: "When the Stellenbosch under-18 side was formed, Jan was the first-ever Captain. His play improved steadily over the years but after playing one test in 1974 he was on the bench for the Springboks so often he became a bit disheartened. When he was again selected as reserve for the test match against the French in 1975 in Pretoria he told me he didn't want to go.

"I told him that he had to accept, that this could turn out to be his big chance. So it happened, and he had to go on as a substitute. The moment he took the field we began to take more than our share of the ball, particularly in the rucks and loose mauls. It was only then that everyone, especially the selectors, realized how stupid they had been not to select him before.

"There has never been a better fetcher of the ball than Jan 'Boland'. A greatly underrated player, who could have been worth even more to the Springboks had he been given a chance earlier."
He learned his rugby on the salt pans near Lamberts Bay on the West Coast and went to school in Malmesbury, hence his distinctive Afrikaans brei (accent). "When I arrived at university in Stellenbosch they couldn't understand my Afrikaans. . ." Coetzee also admits that the only jacket he possessed was his rugby blazer which he'd earned playing for Boland schools. And that's where the nickname Jan 'Boland' originated.

He played in the front row at school, even spending some time as a hooker. "But I didn't like it when my arms were vas. . ." For Maties (Stellenbosch University) he was a flank. "In those days you played whatever position Doc Craven told you to play."

There were a number of reasons his international career only spanned six tests. One was that he was considered too small and slow to operate off the side of the scrum, a point soundly disproved by his performance against the French.

His opponents likened him to a terrier and said he had hands "like vice-grips".

Then there was the sanctions era. "The first demonstrations were held in 1969," recalls Coetzee, "so the opportunity to play international rugby was a bit thin on the ground. I played in '74, '75 and '76 but then the tour of France in 1979 was cancelled because of sanctions and that's when I stopped playing internationals."

He remembers, "In 1979, when that tour was cancelled, I said that if I couldn't go to France as a sportsman, I'd go as a winemaker." In those days he was playing rugby on 12 weekends a year "and even that was too much. . ."

Coetzee admits taking a little longer to finish his studies than some of his winemaking colleagues, completing his degree in 1968 while already employed at Kanonkop, after having worked two harvests at Simonsvlei. "Kanonkop has a sense of place that comes through in the wine - no matter who made it, whether it was me or Beyers (Truter). It's like Romanée-Conti in that respect."

Coetzee recalls that the Stellenbosch estate was planted predominantly to Shiraz and in 1969 he ripped out half the vineyards and planted Cabernet Sauvignon. Given his modesty, it's interesting to hear him brag about his Kanonkop Cab. "The first was released in 1973 from those 1969 plantings. I would happily put that up against any of the Bordeaux First Growths!" And he would know, having drunk and enjoyed many of these great wines. "I can remember as a young winemaker earning R114 a month, that I could buy five bottles of top French wine for a tenth of my salary - and I did!" A Chateau Latour set him back R2.10 and in 1973 he bought a 1966 Chateau d'Yquem for R14 - he remembers vividly because he drank the bottle recently!
"Young winemakers can't afford to do that nowadays and that's a tragedy, because it's only by drinking bottles of great wine - not just tasting them - that you appreciate what they're all about. You need that exposure." Coetzee is renowned in the industry for his comment that the best wine is generally in the second half of the bottle. . .

Even though Kanonkop was known as a red wine farm, Coetzee was fascinated by white. "I wanted to know why white wines in South Africa were so monotonous at the time." He went so far as to experiment with barrel fermentation of Chenin Blanc in 1975, an idea way ahead of its time, and to learn more he took himself and his family off to Burgundy, France, for six months in 1981. He also spent time working in Italy, but it was in Burgundy that he famously became embroiled in the scheme to smuggle Chardonnay to South Africa - it was Coetzee who took the cuttings that were sent to Danie de Wet.

Burgundy became an abiding passion for Coetzee, even more so than his rugby which he was involved with until he finally stopped coaching at Stellenbosch in the late '90s.

"I could see that by the time I finished with rugby, things had changed. It's become a career, a profession. Doc always said that money would change things - and it has. My best memories of rugby are pulling the green jersey on for the first time, that series against the All Blacks, being the first guy in history to play 100 games for WP - but also of the friends I made through the game. I still keep contact with them, teammates and opponents." Former Lions Captain Willie John McBride always visits him when in South Africa.

Coetzee bought Vriesenhof in 1980, a farm of just 25ha at that stage. Nowadays, son Hannes farms the 35ha under vine and it took 20 years of experimentation with a variety of clones on a range of soil types before he was sufficiently satisfied with his Pinot Noir to release such a wine in 2003.

"There's no other grape that expresses terroir like Pinot Noir, and which also offers the most variety too. There are so many factors that can influence it, like the winemaking or wooding, but it's about the place. The winemaker can come and go, but the place never changes."

Coetzee is excited about the dramatic developments the South African industry has undergone in the past decade. "I can remember the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s - we never had such great times. We were hamstrung by quotas, legislation, plant material, where you could plant. . . Our young winemakers get to compare themselves against the best the world has to offer - fairly and squarely."

But while he appreciates that progress brings change, both in wine and rugby, there's a slight sense of nostalgia that things will never be the same.

"There's no way a young man could play Springbok rugby nowadays and be a winemaker. You have to be one or the other, you can't be both as we were. That was one of the positive things about that time. So we didn't get to play as many tests or at a World Cup but they were good days and I have many happy memories."

His influence in the wine industry has been wide-ranging and he's often used as both sage and sounding board by colleagues. He's a founder member of the Cape Winemakers Guild and has served as a consultant to many wineries, among them Capaia and Havana Hills in the relatively new ward of Philadelphia. "I should have kept quiet about that area near Koeberg hill because now everyone is planting there. . . But I have a place - The first people will know about it is when the vines are planted."

You have to believe that, just as he was the first to pounce on the ball during his rugby career, he's pounced on another great wine growing spot - and time will once again prove his vision sound.

PLAYER PROFILE

Full names: Johannes Hermanus Hugo Coetzee
Date of birth: 20 January 1945
Place of birth: Porterville, South Africa
School: Paarl Swartland High, Malmesbury
University: Stellenbosch
Current age: 62

Tests: 6 Tries: 0

Test history:

8 June 1974: British Lions 12 - 3 South Africa (Cape Town)
28 June 1975: South Africa 33 - France 18 (Pretoria)
24 July 1976: South Africa 16 - 7 New Zealand (Durban)
14 August 1976: New Zealand 15 - 9 South Africa (Bloemfontein)
4 September 1976: South Africa 15 - 10 New Zealand (Cape Town)
18 September 1976: South Africa 15 - 14 New Zealand (Johannesburg)

* MELELO
Fortified: Muscat d'Alexandrie (Unwooded)

* PARADYSKLOOF
Dry White: Chardonnay
Red Wine: Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot; Pinot Noir; Pinotage

* TALANA HILL
Dry White: Chardonnay
Red Wine: Royale (Merlot & Cabernet Franc)

* VRIESENHOF
Red Wine: Cabernet; Enthopio (Pinotage & Merlot & Cabernet Franc & Shiraz); Kallista (Cabernet Sauvignon & Cabernet Franc & Merlot); Pinot Noir