Big-hearted Beyers Truter the cellarmaster, has always had a soft spot for the underdog and always liked being involved with people, doing things that help make their lives better. That's why Beyers Truter wanted to be a doctor.’ Instead, Beyers Truter the Cellarmaster, found himself making peoples' lives better through wine.
Vintage 32
There too he found an underdog to champion, a once much-maligned grape bred in South Africa in the early 1900s by Stellenbosch University viticulturist Professor Abraham Izak Perold. Beyers Truter the Cellarmaster has become synonymous with this variety over his more than three decades as one of South Africa's top red winemakers: the 'pinotage pioneer', the 'pinotage prophet', the 'pinotage king'.
The variety invariably elicits extreme reaction: winemakers, wine critics and wine drinkers either love it or hate it. Perhaps it’s an aspect that attracted Beyers, a man of strong emotion: doggedly loyal, and outspoken in his faith and beliefs. For this cellarmaster there is no grey, just black or white or red...
'Be passionate about everything you do. You must have a passion for your wife, passion for your children, passion for your work. If there’s no passion, don't do it.'
The first wine 'to do it for me' was a Spier Pinotage 1973. Beyers Truter bought it by the case while studying at Stellenbosch University, having originally registered for a B.Sc. for admittance to medicine. In fact, he'd started a 'small collection of red wine' while still a schoolboy at Jan van Riebeeck in Cape Town after his family had moved to the Cape Peninsula from Oudtshoorn where he was born (his father was a hospital administrator).
The extremely social, sport-loving Beyers Truter loved student life. 'I played for Pieke, ran the rugby club, manned the bar at Tollies to earn pocket money.' Although the exception among his beer-drinking rugby buddies, he was encouraged to follow his passion for wine, changing his major to viticulture, oenology and chemistry.
'Chemistry almost killed me! I took five years to complete a four-year degree, but I can't emphasise enough to young winemakers these days how important it is to know your chemistry!'
One of just a handful of graduates in 1978 [fellow Guild member and pinotage champion Jeremy Walker was another], he nevertheless struggled to find a position even as an assistant winemaker. 'There weren't many wineries but I also think the "old guard" felt threatened by these "youngsters" with degrees.'
After a stint as quality controller for the Deciduous Fruit Board, he heard about a position at Kanonkop. 'One day, in a cafe, I bumped into a young guy who'd been offered the post but was too daunted because he felt too inexperienced.' Beyers Truter, though equally apprehensive, decided to go for it. It was the end of 1980 and the vaunted Kanonkop had been without a winemaker for some six months after Jan 'Boland' Coetzee [a founding Guild member] had left.
This cellarmaster called Jannie Krige, who had succeeded father-in-law Oom Paul Sauer, one of the Cape's first growers to plant Pinotage. 'Jannie came and fetched me from the cafe, sat me down with his wife Mary, opened a bottle of wine and we chatted until we'd finished the bottle...'
Krige was not the only one to recognise a prodigious talent with a commitment to contributing to the development of quality winemaking in the Cape: Beyers was among the second set of young winemakers (including Johan Malan and Jeff Grier) invited to join the newly founded Cape Winemakers Guild in 1983.
Later, Beyers heard that, before meeting him, Krige had contacted Stellenbosch University oenology professor Joel van Wyk [honorary Guild member] for a quick reference. 'Apparently, Prof Joel said something to the effect of the guy likes rugby, he's very social; you could most probably take a chance on him.' Over the next 23 vintages at one of the Cape's 'First Growths', Beyers proved his professor's words an understatement nonpareil.
Beyers Truter was the 1987 Diners Club Winemaker of the Year with a Kanonkop Pinotage. He subsequently almost single-handedly put the Cape variety on the world map at the 1991 International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) in London when he won the Robert Mondavi Trophy for International Winemaker of the Year...with a pinotage.
This cellarmaster continued to rake in the silverware at the IWSC. Most notably, he won the prestigious Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Trophy for best blended red wine, twice: in 1994 and again in 1999.
Back home, his pinotages regularly appeared on the annual ABSA Top 10 Pinotage list. Since the competition's inception in 1997, it's been between 10 and 12 times…' I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the youngsters for two vintages “shared”: 2003 with Abrie at Kanonkop and 2007 to Anri at Beyerskloof!' he jests, referring to his successor and his winemaker son respectively.
This incredible showing has earned him a rating as one of the 'top six pinotage winemakers' in South Africa's Pinotage Wine Guide issued for the first time in 2011. Needless to say, venerated Kanonkop's name appears on the guide's newly minted Top 10 Pinotage Classification list. But so too does a wine producer called Beyerskloof. Because by the time Beyers finally handed the keys of the Kanonkop cellar to assistant, successor, and later fellow Guild member Abrie Beeslaar at the end of 2003, the 'Beyers Truter' name had become associated with a new champion pinotage and red blend label.
Beyers Truter minced alikreukel (giant periwinkles) in pinotage with Frank’s saffron rice recipe paired with Beyerskloof Pinotage....
Rib-eye steak with pinotage sauce and mieliebrood (cornbread) recipe by Beyers Truter....