Winemakers who “go it alone” are not exactly rare breeds, nor are they a threatened species despite the high casualty rate.
At a point — usually quite early in a winemaker’s career — a decision has to be made: are you going to work for someone your whole life or are you going to follow your creative instinct “unbossed”.
This is not necessarily as binary as it appears to be: if all you want is the opportunity to make a wine you are solely responsible for (this includes getting it to market), plenty of winery owners are willing to accommodate the creative needs of their employees. Some don’t, of course. One once said to me that the relationship between the winemaker and the winery is like a marriage: it requires absolute fidelity with “no little bit on the side”.
Others recognise that allowing cellarmasters a little creative rope can be character building. They realise that those who succeed will ultimately leave, but they would have done so anyway.
Charles Back encouraged Eben Sadie to make his own wines — knowing this would never satisfy him in the long term. Johann Krige permitted Abrie Beeslaar the same freedom. Anthony Beck allowed Pieter Ferreira to build his eponymous range while he was still working at Graham Beck. He knew that, with mandatory retirement age lurking in the not-too-distant future, this would keep Ferreira close to the brand he had built from inception — even after Pierre de Klerk took over as chef de cave.
While Ferreira has lately been less directly involved at Graham Beck, he has continued to work on establishing Anthony Beck’s UK fizz brand, he’s been active in the Cap Classique Association, mentoring the next generation and training wine judges. In fact, he has just received the industry’s annual Wine Advancement Award. Meantime, the machine he created and maintained for more than 30 years keeps on growing, yielding better and better wines.
Along the way he has been establishing his own fizz business, an enterprise he launched almost 15 years ago. It’s always been a niche brand, carefully designed stylistically not to compete with the options within the Graham Beck range. Now, with fewer responsibilities at Graham Beck, he’s turning his side hustle into a more substantial operation.
Over the years I’ve sampled most of the wines he has made under his own label. Tasting his latest releases, I was struck by how they have become aesthetically self-defining, with their own distinct style and pedigree. The entry-level 2023 chardonnay-pinot noir “Birdsong” blend is perfectly put together: subtle but not evanescent, delicately fragrant, concentrated and weightless. It’s better than many big-brand Champagnes.
The Birdsong rosé 2021 still needs a little time in the bottle, but, with only 200 cases produced, you’ll have to buy it now. The same holds for the sublime blanc de blanc (2021 vintage, 100% chardonnay, 55 months on the lees). Drink it now if you must, though you’ll regret your impatience later.
A winemaker whose own business was never created in the shadow of her employer’s winery is Natasha Jacka. She began her career at Cape Point Vineyards but always intended to start her own brand. She worked and hustled until she had saved enough to launch Alinea, using grapes bought from several sites around the Cape as well as fruit from a block she planted with her mother in Noordhoek. She rents crush space (first at Uitsig, now at Cape Point) and now finally she’s living her dream.
She deserves to succeed: she makes a pretty neat viura (the 2024 is the perfect accompaniment to oysters), two different grenache noirs, a syrah and a splendid white 2024 field blend from the Noordhoek site. At this stage the whites offer more complexity than the reds, a function of the varieties she works with and the relative youth of what’s in the bottle.
In a market where small labels proliferate, Alinea is not a winemaker’s ego trip in the shadow of a bigger brand. It’s the real deal.
This article was first published in Business Day.
