The fires started at the end of the first week in February when at least one vineyard at Tokara off the Helshoogte Pass in Stellenbosch was burnt to its roots. A few days later, a fire in Stellenbosch’s Jonkershoek Valley, started by children, climbed over the mountain and down into what is known as the ‘Golden Triangle’.
This piece of Stellenbosch property is home to the likes of Stellenzicht, De Trafford, Waterford and others. Fortunately, no vineyards were destroyed but Waterford and De Trafford did suffer some heat damage. No sooner was this fire brought under control when, on the other side of the Helderberg mountain in what is called the ‘Helderberg Bowl’, a fire that started on what looked like the lower slopes near to Lourensford spread up the mountain and over the saddle back towards the Stellenbosch side, and the wineries mentioned above – plus others like Hidden Valley and Uva had to battle flames again.
A week later and the Helderberg Bowl is still filled with smoke from fires that again appear to have been started on Lourensford or Vergelegen, and have spread deep into Vergelegen’s property and beyond to rage on estates on the far side of the Bowl. Here, at Wedderwill, they saved the homes adn cellar but not the vineyards; they’ve been razed by the fires. At Waterkloof where French owner Paul Boutinot was visiting its numerous slopes and aspects just last week, winemaker Werner Engelbrecht said he couldn’t even see his vineyards through the pall of smoke.
Vergelegen marketing director, Eddie Turner, reported that grimy soot had settled on the vineyards and that the visibility was so bad, they had to ground the helicopters. The fire was kept away from the cellar and, according to Turner, Vergelegen lost only about three tons of grapes compared to Lourensford’s 70 tons.
Winemaker Andre van Rensburg is harvesting, but will continually monitor and measure taint in the juice as it ferments for smoke taint. It is not they’re unsure about what impact this latest blaze, and those of last week, will have on grape quality. There are those who believe that – low levels of taint, that is – do not affect wine quality, but others, like L’Ormarins viticulturist, Rosa Kruger, will be rejecting grapes from vineyards that had been blanketed by smoke saying aroma and flavour is definitely negatively affected.
While these fires have been nowhere near the magnitude of those in Australia, they could have a profound effect on the quality of wines from producers in both the Triangle and the Bowl.
Elsewhere in the Cape, the long (the harvest started on average two weeks later than usual) and relatively cooler harvest has yielded a disease-free crop with low pHs and high natural acids. Many are claiming this will be an outstanding year for white wines, and a better than average year for reds.
Cathy Van Zyl is the only resident Master of Wine in South Africa. She is the Associate Editor and taster for the coveted Platter's Guide for South African Wines. She is a judge and panellist for several competitions in South Africa and abroad. She contributes to international magazine and websites, including delWine, and lectures for the Cape Wine Academy on tasting.
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