DisDit & The Little Angels

Sometimes you need little angels to show you the way. And if you are lucky enough you’ll recognise them.

There was this person sitting next to me at my brother-in-law’s birthday party seven or eight years ago. I told her that we had some grapes and we hoped to make some half-decent wine from these grapes. She turned to me and said: “If you are going to make wine you might as well make the best wine.” Her name – Meryl Weaver, a Cape Wine Master. At that same party, we met the De Kocks. Difficult to describe Ben as an angel, but Tessa definitely qualified.

Quintus (my farm manager) and I tried to make wine on the farm, but it was a disaster so we decided to get people to give us a hand and slowly we made some progress. It was not until the third angel showed up that things started happening. This angel had been the winemaker for the Beaumonts and she had just started her own label. This was Marelise Niemann and she eventually agreed to make our wine. There were others who helped us too – Bernard Heyns of Gabrielskloof, Sebastian Beaumont of Beaumont Family Wines, Niels Verburg of Luddite Wines, Peter-Allan Finlayson of Crystallum and Adi Badenhorst of AA Badenhorst Family Wines. Their advice was not to go with just any wine but to wait for the right one.

One of the other angels is my gracious and patient wife – Sue.

It took us more than a year to get the Anysbos label sorted. The De Kocks were involved, actually very involved and my ego took a few ‘klappe’ but in the end it was right. As I said before, Ben can hardly be described as an angel.

Marelise Niemann made the white blend and a Grenache Noir for us and the white blend needed a name. When we tasted it, it was the right one. Tessa picked the name. It comes from a little routing in the milk shed. I would ask Willem, my assistant, if we were done milking the goats. “Is dit, dit?” and he would reply “Disdit.” Meaning it is done and dusted. Milked and dipped and ready to go!

Our wine was done and dusted and ready to go – Disdit

We made only 462 bottles and we never had the time or the occasion to launch our white blend and before we knew it, it had sold out.

Written by Johan Heyns