MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Standing the test of time and taste

I wrote my first wine column in the mid-1970s, a commission from the Financial Mail’s legendary editor, George Palmer.

At the same time John Platter was writing a weekly wine piece in the Rand Daily Mail. When he moved to the Cape and focused on his eponymous guide I inherited his Rand Daily Mail slot to go with the FM commitment. In 1986, when the Mail closed and Business Day was launched, my wine column shifted seamlessly to the new title. Back then a regular wine feature seems to have been the mark of a serious publication.

In those distant days few wineries sold directly to the public, and even fewer supplied retailers — probably no more than 5% of the numbers of today. On reflection I’m not sure how, given the vastly smaller wine scene, I was able to find subject matter for two weekly columns. Anything new was manna from heaven: when I discovered there was a recently launched wine estate in Stellenbosch I contrived to visit it immediately. That was how I came to meet former Springbok Jannie Engelbrecht and how the name of Rust en Vrede came to wine drinkers outside the Cape.

Jannie bought Rust en Vrede from the Orr family in 1977. The cellar in those days was alongside the house. Unusually at that time for SA he was using small oak barrels: most wineries had only tanks or open cement fermenters. The set-up was charming and authentic. The wines I sampled were suitably impressive: I recognised even then that Rust en Vrede was going to be a force in Cape wine.

Fast forward 45 years. Jannie has retired to Hermanus. His son Jean has been running the property for more than 25 years. It is one of a handful of true wine estates in the Cape: all the fruit that goes into bottles labelled Rust en Vrede is grown on the farm. All the other enterprises Jean has created and developed over the years — Guardian Peak, Cirrus, Stellenbosch Reserve, Donkiesbaai (and at one stage Ernie Els) — have a separate existence: different vineyards, a separate winery.

The hospitality side has also grown: the original tasting room was Jannie’s garage. He moved the car out early in the morning. His wife erected counters for the day’s trade. The Rust en Vrede restaurant (where Marble’s David Higgs first made his reputation) serves high-end fine food four nights a week. Simpler meals are available all year round in the tasting room. But Jean has another nine restaurants scattered around the Cape, Namibia and Pretoria.

Rust en Vrede has always been a red wine farm. In the late 1970s Jannie had bottled a little chenin blanc, but he abandoned that early on. Shiraz and cabernet became his focus varieties, and he was the first producer in SA to blend them together. 

In the early days most planting material arrived virus-infected from the nurseries. Whatever didn’t initially appear contaminated manifested the telltale leaf-roll disease soon enough. So in 2012 Jean began a total replanting programme — which has taken 12 years to complete. Now — probably for the first time in Rust en Vrede’s history — all the fruit that goes into its wines is virus-free. The freshness and purity of the current releases vindicates this huge vineyard investment.

Jannie handed over the winemaking to Kevin Arnold in 1987; 10 years later Louis Strydom took over from him. He was succeeded by Coenie Snyman, who left after the 2021 vintage, passing the baton to Danielle le Roux. The wines being made at the estate today are vastly different from the bigger, bolder style pioneered by Engelbrecht père, and which grew in weight and texture with each passing vintage — until the new vineyards came of age. 

The common thread in all these new releases is the intensity of the Helderberg fruit, with the most recent vintages the most striking. With the oak less visible and the terroir almost translucent, the wines now have an almost gem-like brilliance.

This column originally appeared in Business Day.