27 WINELANDS

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“w e h av e o n ly s ta rt e d to see the tourism potential of the Winelands,” declares Raphael Dornier, as we stroll from the Sir Herbert Baker-designed homestead, past the 18th-century barn which now houses the Bodega Restaurant, down to the wine cellar, which his father Christoph designed in 2002. “Many wine estates don’t take into account that people rarely come for wine alone, but rather for unforgettable moments. They want to see beauty, and don’t want to be bored before they get hungry. Then they want to eat and yes, they might drink wine. Our job is to offer them all that,” Raphael says.

As we enter the spotless cellar, he checks the season’s first, sweet, shrivelled grapes from the Swartland, ready to be processed into the elegant blends for which Dornier is famous.

“This building is central to our marketing strategy,” Raphael explains. It is our anchor.” He believes that the Cape Winelands could follow Austria’s very successful use of contemporary architecture to help rebrand itself as a place of exciting and modern wines. However, as Raphael says, it’s difficult to measure the impact of architecture: “People often like things because an expert says so. In this, there is no big difference between art and wine. Our intention is not to follow styles. We want all our products, wine, food, accommodation and architecture to reflect what we consider are much more important than fads: quality, transparency, honesty and elegance.”

I ask Raphael how the wine cellar relates to this credo. He points to the steel tanks suspended from the ceiling and reminds me that a cellar is first of all a production site. “We suspended these tanks in such a

way that they allow us to work sensitively with the wine in its critical phase at the end of fermentation. We don’t want to expose the wine to any rough handling, which could release unwanted tannins. Everything in this building is designed to aid the production process.”

I pick up a bottle, with the company logo, showing a face with two bird heads. “It was designed by my father Christoph, who had a great interest in ancient mythology,” Raphael explains. “One story he was drawn to is that of Zeus transforming himself into a swan to woo Leda. This story is about metamorphosis, and as such it relates to wine, which also undergoes a mysterious transformation.” Christoph passed away three years ago, and Raphael shows me a few large canvasses of his father’s expressionist paintings full of snakes with seductive eyes, female torsos, threatening skies and undecipherable hieroglyphs.

From the restaurant I see how the red of the evening sun causes both the cellar’s bricks and the backdrop of the Stellenbosch Mountain to glow and Raphael points out how the soft outlines of the cellar correspond with the sharper more indented ridges of the mountain.

“It’s difficult to put Dornier into words,” he says, hinting at a family riddle which has been kept alive through generations. Reflecting on a family tradition that saw Raphael’s great-grandfather import wines from France, his grandfather build aeroplanes and his father grace the Winelands with one of its iconic buildings, and to then see Raphael and his wife bring it all to life, I can’t solve the riddle, but I can certainly appreciate it. (BF)

021 visits the Winelands and encounters three estates driven by three unique visions.

DoINg IT DIffErENTLyALTyDgEDAchTA plAce where trAdition And

innovAtion meet. Altydgedacht is a large-scale commercial wine farm spanning 412 hectares at the foot of the Tygerberg hills. Each season’s harvest yields an average of 130 tonnes of grapes, 110 of which are supplied to Nederburg while the remaining 20 tonnes are used to produce the estate’s own wine.

Established in 1698, Altydgedacht has been in the Parker family since 1852 and is jointly farmed by brothers John and Oliver. Steeped in history, the estate’s cellar dates from the early 1700s and is one of the oldest functioning wine cellars in the country. You won’t find ostentatious manor houses or art galleries at Alltydgedacht. The farm has an unkempt, down-to-earth feel, with lawns that have never been manicured, a winding gravel road with big potholes, an old rowing boat which sits idle in a vlei, and a hose pipe left casually in the front of the restaurant. The tiny tasting room is rather cozy. A few photos and etchings on the wall present the highlights of Altydgedacht’s history, and a dusty root, pinned against the wall, serves as a reminder of the priceless biological value of the original renosterveld which Altydgedacht has managed to preserve.

A special feature of the estate is the 40 hectares of protected renosterveld. The Cape floral kingdom consists of three types: fynbos, which grows mostly in the mountains; strandveld, which inhabits the coast; and renosterveld, which populates the clay-rich interior regions where the winter rainfall is between 250 and 600 millimetres – perfect agricultural conditions for growing grapes and cultivating wheat. Hence, only 4% of this little-known and unappreciated vegetation remains in the Western Cape. It is now one of the most threatened vegetation types in the world. Unusually, Altydgedacht’s renosterveld area hasn’t been burned for 85 years. Instead, wildlife from a neighbour’s game farm has been encouraged to forage in the area, creating natural pathways

DorNIEr expressing Art And elegAnce.

WINELANDS ESTATES NEW.indd 27 2/21/11 5:35:38 PM