Nervous Farmers, Nervous Birds.

Last week we had some rain. Not much but enough to make us happy. And our neighbours a bit nervous. Our vines and olives want water. Our neighbours need sunshine for their wheat and oats and canola to ripen.

Sometimes we get rain in February. It can save the grape harvest or destroy it. Mostly the latter. You try and read the signs; You hope and plan; do what you can but you will still make mistakes.

In 2012 we figured that the viognier is just not the business. We cut it back and grafted Rousanne on to it. It was the beginning of DisDit.

This year we will fix the last of our mistakes, our Pinot Noir to Grenache. When we first arrived here, we received all kinds of advice. Plant olives because they are easier to farm than grapes. Yeah right. If you do grapes, plant Sauvignon blanc because there is a market for it. So they said. And lastly, we planted Pinot Noir. Because.

I did my articles with Oom Tom Searle in Harrismith. And sometimes we would be invited to dinner. Weekdays would go down with Tassies. Weekends it would be Chateau Libertas and High days and holidays a bottle of Pinot Noir from Muratie. I was introduced to wine.

The Pinot did not do too badly. Some reputable winemakers bought it. Not long after we settled here someone gave me a bottle Grenache Shiraz blend. It was the beginning of a journey an adventure. So sadly, we have to say goodbye. The fifteen-year-old Pinot will disappear and a year later it will be sixteen-year-old Grenache Noir. More suited to the challenges of climate change. More suited to our valley. We now have four different clones of Grenache noir with different characteristics and with four different ripening dates. We may just dodge that February floods.

Back to the weather.

For two months a couple of Blue Cranes have been checking out Baboon dam for possible nesting. When the dam is half full or more, an island is formed. An ideal nesting place. Depending how much we take out and how much flows in, it is, or isn’t, an island.
They stay away for a few days. Come and go. Today they are back, announcing themselves to the world. Who knows what happens tomorrow. In some ways this newsletter has been held up by these indecisive lovers. You’ll have to wait for the next newsletter to know what happened. Whether they had the right advice; made the right call.

One of the reasons for the ebb and flow of the dam was a broken borehole pump. We have fixed it now and will watch it through the summer. I have a suspicion the Blue Cranes will be watching the borehole too.

Nervous birds. Nervous farmers. The fynbos just looks a little bit less impressive this year. It is probably my imagination.

We almost forget that since we’d been in touch we’d been to our favourite winter spot and saw our kids at the same time. There the weather also had a say.

Kruger had a lot of rain. Little streams and waterholes made it unnecessary for animals to travel to find drinking water. Predators had to find their prey. Not wait at a dam or waterhole for their food. Add to that the lush vegetation and you were lucky if you came across anything spectacular.

And we were, once; on our way back to the Phabeni Gate. It was getting late and the light was starting to fade.

There they were. Next to the road and crossing. A group of five or six female lions and their cubs. Flopping down on the warm tar and playing. As if the place belongs to them. In the neighbouring bush was a nervous buffalo herd.

For those of you travelling this way this December, one of our previous year’s cellar assistant, Oriole, will be here to help with the tasting. We will be open every day except Sundays. But as usual, please phone to make a booking to make sure that someone can attend to you. See you then.

Anxious boere groete

Johan, Sue and Elodie