A Unexpected Meritage...

Written by Ben | 28 August 2009

If you’ve ever had dinner on my patio then you’ve had good South African wine.

After having a quick, three hour chat with one of South Africa’s most talented and passionate young winemakers today I can absolutely assure you that only GREAT South African wine will be served.

This would have never happened, of course, if I hadn’t been unable to sleep on our South African Airways flight o Cape Town and sought solace in the in-flight magazine, Sowubona for two hours.

(Wine Country, South Africa)Thankfully, after reading the entire issue twice I was able to fall off to sleep for the approach to Cape Town. Upon waking and almost entirely out of habit, I grabbed the issue and shoved it in my backpack.When we finally wrangled our rental car and found our friend Haans-Louis it was in the wee hours of the next morning and all remembrances of the day before were happily erased.

Fast forward to the next morning. As we only had a couple of days in the Cape lined up we decided to go ahead and try to find a winemaker to interview for BTK. Dave was lamenting that he read an amazing article about South Africa’s first black female Winemaker but could not remember her name or anything else about her. Jet lag strikes again.

(Crazy to see this!)On the drive up to Stellenbosch, something kept tugging at my mind until it finally dawned on me where I read about the Winemaker Dave was speaking of. The in-flight magazine in my backpack! Of course! I always pocket them!Dave pulled out the article and I called the Winery, a small boutique in Stellenbosch – one of South Africa’s most popular wine regions – to track down one Ms. Ntsiki Bayela.“Ntsiki please”, I asked when phoning, hoping the receptionist would just assume I was a friend of hers and not screen my call. Yes, I know how to pronounce Ntsiki.“Miss Bayela is in a meeting right now but I can have her call you back”.

“Oh that’s fine, I just wanted to say hello and I can try her tomorrow or later on this afternoon”.

There was a long pause and the girl on the phone said enthusiastically, “Oh no sir, if you delay she will be on a plane for China in the morning!”.I then enquired how long Ntsiki would be working today and asked if it would be okay to stop by and say hello. The receptionist, who still had no idea who I was or what I wanted simply stated, “of course” in a tone that was sincere but had a subtle undertone of surprise. I had forgotten how warm and genuine most South Africans are.Upon arriving at the Winery, we asked if Ntsiki was available and were immediately ushered upstairs and seated at sofas outside her office. A very surprised lady soon opened the door and introduced herself and asked if she could help us.I briefly explained what we were doing and how she was not on our itinerary but after reading about her we knew that we must come and see her and ASSURED her we would only take 10 minutes of her valuable time.

“Yes – only 10 minutes”, nodded Ntsiki and turned to David and smiled.

(Tasting Room)

That’s where my part of the story ends. At this point David had found a fellow artist and I was content to sit back and enjoy the excellent Cab and listen to David and Ntsiki passionately ponder all things wine and wonderful.

(Chef Dave, Ntsiki, and proprietor David Lello) Video is being edited from our 3 hour trip to Stellekaya -please be patient, high speed internet is a luxury in Africa