In the kitchen, as in the cellar, Jan ‘Boland’ Coetzee is absorbed by taste and flavour, colour and texture. And he's typically barefoot and comfortable in open-necked cotton shirt and kortbroek (shorts). This standard apparel extends to long socks and shoes and a short-sleeved knitted pullover in a nod to the Cape's cold, wet winters.
According to Jan, he so hated wearing shoes as a boy, he'd tie the laces together and sling them over his shoulder. Arriving from the platteland [country] as a new student in the university town of Stellenbosch, the only 'formal' attire he possessed was the rugby blazer earned as a Boland Schools’ layer. It's the origin of the enduring moniker Jan 'Boland'.
He’s collected wine since his early working days in the late 1960s. He recalls earning just over R100 (about $13) a month and buying a handful of top French wines with part of that salary: Château Latour and Chateau d’Ychem - a 1996 of the latter, bought for R2,10 (28 US cents) was opened a couple of years ago. Other memorable empties line up on the long kitchen hearth mantelpiece or act as doorstops: Clos des Lambrays, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a Tantalus Riesling from British Colombia, and magnums of Champagne.
Jan doesn't drink much Sauvignon Blanc, finding the acidity too high, particularly in wines to which ascorbic acid has been an antioxidant to keep the wine fresh during the winemaking process.
‘Some, like me, are overly sensitive to acid [Vitamin C]. It collects in the bones and can cause swelling and joint pain, a bit like gout.' A favourite anecdote, Jan's customary incorrigible glint, involves a well-known banker friend who owns a top Stellenbosch wine farm and is similarly afflicted.
‘I told him: man, you've been bitten by the sauvignon spinnekop [spider]! He ended up buying a new mattress and having his room fumigated because he thought he was bitten by a real spider, but it was all the Sauvignon Blanc he was drinking!'
A perennial player of tricks on friends and family, Jan decided to 'test' the resolve and ability of his potential new son-in-law as a crayfish diver on his first visit to the Coetzee family’s West Coast cottage near Paternoster. ‘The big male kreef [crayfish] have hiding places in holes in the rocks. And they retreat into them backwards, to protect themselves with their pincers and wedge themselves in with their claws. You need to get a good grip and then push them back a bit to dislodge them before pulling them out.’
Clad in a wetsuit against the icy Atlantic waters, the young man was directed to one of these hidey-holes. 'The water was quite shallow so I had to put one foot on his back to help him stay down. He struggled and spluttered a bit. Then he finally came up with one leg, then another, then a pincer. So I said to him: are you now trying to build your own crayfish?' Adi Badenhorst saw the humour and became not only his son-in-law, but eventually a fellow Guild member.
Jan 'Boland' has from early on in his career been sought after as a consultant in the wine industry. His involvement and influence stretch across the Cape winelands: from established, historic properties in Constantia and Stellenbosch; groundbreaking wineries in Robertson; virgin territory in cooler climes in Darling and Elgin; to exciting new sites and newly discovered old vines from Philadelphia in the south to Piekenierskloof in the north.
Still, there are places waiting for his footprints: 'I've got a few spots up the West Coast, but I'm not gonna tell you where yet; you better just wait and see...' He adopts a cunning look, like a fox. Not for nothing is this canny grower admiringly referred to as 'the old jakkals'.
Cape Coq au Vin Recipe with Vriesenhof Pinot Noir by Jan ‘Boland’ Coetzee....
Delicious pumpkin pie recipe paired with Vriesenhof Pinotage by Jan ‘Boland’ Coetzee....