‘I remember the smell in the air when I first arrived in Stellenbosch that February of 1976; the sweet must aroma of fermenting grapes and the roads full of tractors transporting freshly picked fruit.'
Vinatge 32
Kevin Arnold had arrived to do a two-year Elsenburg Agricultural College diploma in agronomy and animal husbandry, with a vague idea of following his dad into farm management.
He was born in Stutterheim in the Transkei and later found himself in the Great Karoo, where his father managed a racehorse stud. He was schooled at Union High in Graaff-Reinet and St Andrews, Bloemfontein, in the Free State.
A keen cricketer in his youth, Kevin played national schools Nuffield Cricket with later SA international batsman Kepler Wessels and, in the army, with Western Province and England player Allan Lamb. At Stellenbosch University sports club Maties, he shared the crease with the likes of soon-to-be internationals Peter Kirsten and fast-bowler Garth le Roux.
‘But I was never in their league,’ he says with his trademark self-deprecation. Instead, he became one of the country's finest red winemakers of modern times.
Having decided to do Elsenburg's relatively new third-year cellar technology diploma, he worked holiday jobs at Stellenbosch Farmers' Winery (SFW). 'I did everything, from schlepping pipes in the cellar to packing wine.'
It also brought him into the ambit of some great men of Cape wine. He lauds the late Ronnie Melck [Managing Director of SFW and owner of Muratie Wine Estate]. 'One of the best palates I've ever encountered.' Another mentor was Duimpie Bayly.
Then SFW production head and now top industry administrator, he had studied at the University of California, Davis, and Harvard, a rarity in a field that, like many other South African industries, was hampered from development by international economic sanctions until the early 1990s.
Then there was Delheim's Spatz Sperling, who offered Kevin his first assistant winemaking post. Sperling and the late Frans Malan of Simonsig were two innovators of the wine industry, establishing the first wine route in the early 1970s and helping introduce a culture of wine and food in the Winelands.
Black mussels with ginger, garlic and chilli recipe with Waterford Sauvignon Blanc by Kevin Arnold....
Prawn bisque recipe with Waterford Sauvignon Blanc by Kevin Arnold. ...