Braam van Velden is a member of one of the most venerable Cape wine families of the modern era. As such he has been at the forefront of significant vineyard and wine development, and witness to great change in winelands life during his 60-plus years on Overgaauw, the family farm against Ribbok ridge up the Stellenbosch Kloof just outside the university town of Stellenbosch.
Vintage 39
Yet throughout, the quiet, unshowy demeanour of the vintner has complemented the character of his wines: consistently well made, authentically styled and carefully crafted for enjoyment over time. The third-generation owner of Overgaauw is a traditionalist. Much as his father, the aristocratic Oom David van Velden, and he worked together for many years tending the vineyards and making the wines, so he and his elder son David, the fourth-generation incumbent in the cellar, are collaborating on the ongoing renewal of the estate.
Sitting at the kitchen table of the farm's main house where he grew up and where he and his wife Annalie raised four children (married daughters Suzanne and Janet and sons David and Niel), Braam is still happily ‘at home’, despite he and Annalie having settled in a townhouse nearby in 2011. 'And we’re loving it!' she says.
David and wife Nicole (an Overberg farmer’s daughter and industrial psychologist) have moved into the Victorian-Edwardian family home built by Braam's grandfather Abraham van Velden in 1910. It’s the nature of things here: the handing over of the torch to the next generation.
Through each occupant puts his stamp on the house, it remains largely unspoilt with its white broekie lace veranda trim, original wooden floors and ceilings, beams and sash windows, and family heirlooms, from the English Ellis Deluxe wood-burning stove here to the roll-top writing desk there.
'And pa and ma are always welcome here,' chorus David and Nicole. There's much coming and going, with Suzanne (who's in charge of the tasting room, sales and marketing) popping in and out, father and son having quiet consultations on vinous matters and mother and daughter-in-law happily bustling about in the kitchen.
'I call myself the "non-executive chairman with executive powers"!'
Before that the young couple lived in the Shepherd's Cottage across the farmyard from the main house and cellar. It's become a rite of passage in the Van Velden family: it's where Braam and Annalie started their married life together in 1973.
Three of my four sisters had their turn too,' says Braam of his siblings Janet, Isabeau and Marguerite. (His other sister Julia is married to Annalie's brother, a fellow Stellenbosch grape grower.) Braam and Annalie's daughters Suzanne and Janet, as well as the two boys, David and Niel, also lived there for a period.
A rustic restored eighteenth-century labourer’s abode with its trademark cut-out heart shape in each of the green wooden shutters, the Shepherd's Cottage has nostalgically lent its much-loved name to this estate's second label wine.
Braam's son introduced the Shepherd's Cottage range in 2007 to meet modern market demands for buy-now, drink-now wines under screw cap to off-set the Overgaauw Estate range, as a rule only released after several years' bottle maturation. Heralding the 'new' when he took over in the cellar that year, the son is a chip off the old block that is Braam.
Black mussel soup recipe Overgaauw Sylvaner white wine by Braam van Velden....
Springbok shin recipe by Braam van Velden with Overgaauw Tria Corda or DC Classic red wine....