It Is Winter

It arrived last week. The old fox had certainly taken its time.

Nearly 40 millimeters of cold wet rain in two days and even a little bit of snow on the mountains. It brings us to just over seventy mills for the month of June. The slim omies had been predicting a slightly drier season, so some real kaapse weer is more than welcome.  Because the soil is drier, the runoff was limited so we are hoping for a few more of these thirty and fourty millimeter visits to start filling the dams. We have had enough rain for the crops and cover crops to do their thing. The temperature has dropped a little.  Not enough yet. We are not complaining.  But we are farmers though.  A bit more of the lower kind will help the rest period for the vineyards.

The sun rises later. Seven o’clock is still dark. We do our own bit of daylight saving; we start at seven thirty during the July school holiday. It is amazing what that extra half an hour does to your psyche and body clock. It says that our holiday is on its way. About that a bit later.

But life goes on on the farm. The olive crop is in. Much much better than last year. In fact, about four times more, and we are rather happy with the quality. Now to get rid of the oil. In the meantime we plant and prune and chip and feed the trees, preparing for next year’s crop. 

I reported earlier that the tasting room is up and running. I can now say with confidence that the tasting room is in good hands with Wilmarié taking charge. Thank you also to Marelise for her support and guidance.

Wilmarié and Brett, our Cape Town agent will be at Carolines Redwine show at the Stadium on the 24th of July to show our award winning Tesame 2022.

For those of you who do not know or had forgotten, we received Six stars and category award winner, red blend with Grenache, from the Platter wine guide.  Unfortunately, we will not be there. By then we will be well and truly on our way to the Wildtuin.

I have not played golf for a year now but have taken out the sand wedge and started chipping on the lawn. We look forward to meet up with the non-Cape children and play a bit of golf and see some amazing game. And if it does not rain there it will not bother us.

Written by Johan Heyns