'Of course! I’m the biggest kid on the farm!" exclaims Niels Verburg in his booming baritone accompanied by a trademark broad grin. Niels Verburg’s been asked if he's also had a go on the dizzyingly high zip line strung across the farm dam at the bottom of the garden of their Bot River hillside farmhouse.
Vintage 22
Living life to the fullest is what this 'old-fashioned, six-foot-four' blonde Viking is all about. Sharing it with him is diminutive but equally big-hearted wife Penny and 'the other three kids': teenaged daughters Daisy and Alice and younger son Kim.
A product of Cape Town's Wynberg Boys’ High, Niels, a lover of the outdoors and a league golfer as a schoolboy, was encouraged by his mother, who was doing a Cape Wine Academy wine appreciation course, to get himself off to Elsenburg Agricultural College.
After finishing his studies, Niels Verburg became an itinerant winemaker, working stints in France (Barsac), New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Experiences at two large wineries in the latter two countries juxtaposed hi-tech, manipulative cellar techniques with rustic, simple winemaking methods and it was the Chilean way, the Luddite lifestyle that resonated with him.
In 1995 he found a 'home' on eighteenth-century Dutch East Indies outpost Compagnes Drift in Bot River, where artist/winemaker Jayne Beaumont and farmer/sailor husband Raoul were doing things the traditional way in a ramshackle, early 1900s cellar they'd resurrected.
Together, Niels and the Beaumont family proved that this patch of rugged, dry earth on the edge of the rolling Overberg wheatfields and sheep lands could produce some great wines, particularly reds, and especially shiraz.
Niels Verburg was still the winemaker at Beaumont when he bought the 17-hectare piece of mountainside slope, in partnership with Pretoria wine and food lover Hillie Meyer, from neighbouring farmer Meneer [Mister] Theron down the road in 1999.
It was done on a wing and a prayer. 'Department of Agriculture regulations prohibit farm subdivisions under 30 hectares, so I had to submit a detailed business plan, motivating the economic viability of planting vines and making wine here. It took two years to get the OK... and a lot of cake!'
But they'd started planting before that. 'We had to, to get up and running: have wine to sell, start paying off loans, build a house... It was a helluva risk. If the sale hadn't been approved, my neighbour would have scored two hectares of damn fine shiraz!'
Oom Basie Smal from Caledon brought his big D9 digger to turn the rocky, clay soil on a relatively cool, east-facing slope overlooking the Bot River in preparation for the first 10 000 shiraz vines planted in 2001.
Niels was still working full-time at Beaumont, so Penny, having studied viticulture and animal husbandry at Elsenburg, did the planting herself, helped by two 'borrowed' farmworkers.
Another 15 000 vines followed in 2004, shortly after the Verburgs had moved into their new, rustic family home. Niels had been making his Luddite Shiraz in borrowed cellar space from bought-in grapes since 2000, starting with just 500 cases of wine, bottled, corked and labelled by hand.
The Verburgs finally managed to afford their own cellar in 2009. Upstairs, built onto a rocky outcrop with views of fynbos, vineyards, wheatfields and the distant Bot River lagoon on Walker Bay, is the indoor/outdoor tasting room with its eye-catching floor of old Luddite barrel ends set in black resin.
'We thought we were being so clever, keeping things cheap using recycled material. But the process proved more complicated than expected; it's probably the most expensive part of the cellar!' But worth it: big Niels comes up and lies prostrate on the cool floor after any back-breaking work, especially during harvest.
'We had Daisy's 18th in the tasting room. There was a fire in the hearth, we set braziers out among the rocks, the music was pumping and we partied all night!'
The 2009 crop, which included the farm's now grape-producing five-and-a-bit hectares, was picked with the help of family, friends and Luddite wine lovers.
For whatever they can't quite manage themselves, they rope in locals. Most become friends, part of the extended 'Luddite' family, sharing skills, exchanging goods, creating a community that works, and eats, and drinks together. Which for Niels, the winemaker, is his raison d'être.
'We don't make a profit, per se. But we're able to finance the simple, honest, good life we've always wanted to live. It's hard work, but we love every minute.'
Chocolate berry pavlova recipe by Niels Verburg paired with More Luddite Shiraz or a Riesling....
Barbecued Luddite suckling pig recipe by Niels Verburg paired with Luddite Shiraz wine....