John Loubser is the personification of the ethos he and wife Karen espouse for their weekend winemaking venture: 'The Silverthorn Story... combining Old World European heritage and knowledge, and our contemporary African environment and culture.' They call it Afropean synergy.
Vintage 16
As one of the Cape's middle-generation winemakers trying to balance a corporate role while staying hands-on in the cellar, John appears quite comfortable wearing two hats: GM of Graham Beck Enterprises and winemaker of Silverthorn Wines.
It began with a small fruit and wine grape farm on the banks of the Breede River near the little Boland town of Bonnievale. Joachim Rieck, a German immigrant to Namibia in 1952, bought the farm in 1976 and finally settled here in 1985. When John met Joachim's daughter Karen, an interior designer in Cape Town, the Riecks were growing peaches and white varieties such as
palomino (for sherry) for a co-operative. John also hails from Namibia where his parents owned one of Windhoek's original old hotels, the Gross Herzog (Grand Duke). 'So I grew up with food and wine.'
But after boarding school in Cape Town (Diocesan College), he thought he'd find creative satisfaction in architecture. After a few years' study, he opted out, did his two years of compulsory national army service, and returned to Namibia for a two-year stint as a diamond diver off the desolate Skeleton Coast.
During this time, Karen had been toying with the idea of doing a couple of winemaking courses with a view to helping her family make their Bonnievale farm more commercially viable. She and John subsequently backpacked around Europe, working in vineyards in Germany.
'John saw my application forms and the penny dropped for him,' says Karen. He enrolled at Elsenburg Agricultural College at the age of 25, graduating as a Dux student in 1995.
He was about to start in a temporary assistant's post under Mike Dobrovic at Mulderbosch (then producing benchmark Sauvignon Blancs, unwooded and wooded, and chardonnay), when he was offered the position of winemaker at fledgling Franschhoek cellar Môreson, then also working with Primary whites as well as sparkling wine.
It was while at Môreson that he did a cellar-rat stint at Château de la Colline in Bergerac near Bordeaux for the 1996 northern hemisphere harvest and worked with French classic white, sémillon, for the first time. Ironically so, because the variety had once been prevalent in the Franschhoek Valley long after its gradual disappearance in the rest of the Cape Winelands (in the early 1800s it had accounted for over 90 percent of all vineyards!).
In 1999 Karen's father passed away and the couple moved onto the Bonnievale farm to support her mother Rosemarie. John spent two hard-working vintages in the De Wetshof cellar with veteran valley winemaker and chardonnay specialist Danie de Wet. At the same time, Silverthorn's small crops, which now included some chardonnay, continued to be harvested for sale to the co-operative.
Then a position came up at Graham Beck's Robertson cellar under cellarmaster Pieter Ferreira, known as a Cap Classique specialist on top of his substantial credentials as a white and red winemaker. John grabbed the opportunity with both hands. 'The chance to work under a cellarmaster of Pieter's calibre while still being able to stay on our farm was something really special.'
'My New Year's resolution for 2011 was to drink only bubbly!'
In 1999 he and Karen were able to make their first payment on a small delivery of their first red vines: cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. 'It hurt,' she recalls with feeling. But the various pockets of soi: available on just 10 hectares of land that is Silverthorn was right for reds.
The next thing they knew, John was offered a winemaking position back in the Cape in the Constantia Valley. Steenberg Vineyards was already making waves as a newly renovated historic wine farm with a superbly designed and equipped cellar and a cool-climate terroir producing world-class wines. It was an offer he couldn't refuse. The family moved back to Cape Town, with John reporting for duty in time to handle the 2002 vintage.
Ceviche with salsa verde and shaved fennel salad recipe by John Loubser paired with Steenberg Reserve Sauvignon Blanc....
Spicy tomato consommé with grilled prawns recipe by John Loubser paired with Steenberg Sémillon wine....