Shy, bespectacled Jennifer Bock was born and grew up on Dwarsrivier. After a stint in the big city, working for a fish factory in Hanover Park, she returned to Clanwilliam as a carer in the old-age home where David's grandmother had a unit.
'Ouma Hannah was a good cook. She'd ask me to go over and help in the kitchen. I learnt a lot from Ouma Hannah,' relates Koekie softly in her home tongue Afrikaans.
David and Koekie 'came home together to Dwarsrivier in 1997. While David was turning the farm upside down with his ambitious winegrowing plans, Koekie took over the kitchen from the long-time housekeeper, Ouma Katie.
'Thank goodness,' exclaims Cisca. 'I was no great cook either. My mother was very good, but very particular and never wanted anyone to "interfere" while she was in the kitchen. Koekie is a natural talent. She and I page through recipe books together. The quarterly Sarie food magazine is our favourite. Koekie will read a recipe and then put it down and go and do her own version. And it'll always taste wonderful.'
Koekie's renowned bobotie, which is regularly requested by overseas visitors (agents, clients and winemakers) when they come to Dwarsrivier, is like all her food, explains Cisca. 'Nothing fancy: no sultanas, raisins, dried peaches or apricots and no thick egg layer on top. It's all meat, more like a curried meatloaf, which is why we think everyone loves it.'
Including David, who enjoys it with lots of extra peach chutney slathered on top, rice and geelpatat [sweet potato]. 'Although I have to admit, Koekie's chicken pie is probably my all-time favourite.' They entered her recipe in the search by best-selling SA general interest magazine Huisgenoot for the country's top ten traditional home cooks. 'And she was chosen!' chorus the couple, almost more delighted than Koekie herself.
'A lot of our recipes are born of need,' admits Cisca. The nearest shop, 'quite a good Spar', is in Clanwilliam, some 48 kilometres, two passes and lots of gravel road away. 'At least I had learnt how to make quiche: it's just so quick and easy and tasty. One day I had to produce something for a surprise visitor and there was no vleisie [meat] to put in it. But there was some biltong...'
Voilà! Cisca's biltong and tomato quiche became her husband's favourite on the list that includes ham and spinach; feta and peppadew; and butternut and mushroom, Koekie's creative combination. Most of this comes from their vegetable garden, where Cisca's stalwarts are lettuce, tomato, rocket and courgette (baby marrow).
Again, because there are no shops or restaurants for miles around, when visitors come to Dwarsrivier they join the family at the table. 'In the beginning, it was just the odd KWV excise officer or the fertiliser guy. But now it can be, for example during harvest, 14 people every day for breakfast, lunch and supper. Especially when we have clients come out for the five-day "crash course" in winemaking.' Which is when David the delegator is in his element.
Hence the three sizable tables (plus one on the stoep) dominate the stylishly but simply modernised yet still comfortable 1920s farmhouse. Its loft is full of treasures, including old family photographs in heavy frames, that David and Cisca try to find time to dust off and restore. One such item is an old red scale used to weigh the post in the days when Dwarsrivier was the central 'post office' for the area.
Meals on the stoep, with its expansive views over the Cederberg mountains, are enjoyed under the shade of three massive gnarled akkerdruif vines, planted when the house was built.
'It's a mutation of the Alicante Bouschet red wine grape cultivated in France to give colour to the wine. It's called the akkerdruif because the fruit is shaped like an acorn. The grapes are flippin' nice to eat and it's great as a pergola because the canopy is so thick, the rain doesn't penetrate it,' explains David.
The couple shares a love of sparkling wine. And it reveals the heart of a romantic. David made his first Cap Classique from the farm's last remaining 1984 block of chardonnay in 2005, following traditional Champagne methods: 48 months on the lees, another year in bottle, for drinking in 2010...
Except, come 2010, there wasn't much left, because he'd decided to open some of it for their wedding at the Castle in Cape Town in 2005. 'It was, how shall I say, very fresh!' Rejoins Cisca, eyes shining: 'But absolutely delicious, as young as it was!'
He subsequently made sure he made more each vintage. And he's also made a barrel of his first crop of viognier, which is another of his wife's favourite wines. Adds Cisca, after some thought: 'By the way, I have to say David does do a perfect fried egg.'