Johan Joubert grew up on a small wine grape farm in Bonnievale where he spent halcyon childhood days outdoors, often helping the farm workers prune the vineyards. He also always enjoyed good food.
'My brother and I would race home from school to see who would be first at the table, because usually there would not be much left over for the one who came second!'
'Lily, our housekeeper with the most contagious chuckle, is a great cook. I hire generously proportioned. people; then I know their priorities are right.'
Following his parents' retirement to town in Bonnievale, the farm was eventually sold. 'At just over 30 hectares it was too small to be a viable farming operation, even though I put every bit of spare cash from my bonuses, savings and prize winnings into the place, tripling it in value.'
He lauds his father for life lessons taught: hard work brings success; work for things in life, and then you will appreciate them more; establish a solid career. (Johan's brother Chris followed up a long stint as winemaker at Overgaauw with a position as cellarmaster at Lourensford Estate in Somerset West.) 'One of us wouldn't have had to give it all up to be full time on the farm; we just couldn't.'
The brothers have, however, registered rights to the farm's name, Angora. 'Maybe one day we will make a wine under that label.'
Before finally handing over their farm to the new owner, Johan had carted any number of farm collectibles back to his home in a comfortable Stellenbosch suburb: old ploughs, shears, pruners, cutters and old Oregon wood furniture. Over time he wants to restore and display it all in remembrance of the farm. His home is also full of still lifes and farm scenes, painted by his mom.
But he's not just a collector of memorabilia; he's a magpie. 'I can't pass a junk store or second-hand shop without going in and bringing something home.' There's an unusual old iron corkscrew with a sharp metal point on the handle 'for cracking open wax seals on old bottles of wine'. There's a copper boiler on the mantelpiece of the well-used indoor hearth. In a corner kitchen cabinet stands a tiny bottle of nose drops with handwritten instructions from the apothecary in the ornate script that was the norm generations ago.
Johan collects old Oregon pine furniture and window frames from the Cape of yore (a cottage-pane window frame is artfully employed for a collage of family photos). A massive, rock-hard wooden log of undetermined type has been carted along whenever he's moved house and is now a garden feature. He’s also a keen gardener. 'I love working with living things, growing things.' He's fascinated not only by flavours and textures in wine, but also by his surroundings. Succulents are transplanted to create changing visual vignettes. Garden furniture, gates and decorative items are laboriously 'rusted' used sandpaper and numerous coats of a rust-coloured anti-rust product.
Hunting and Fishing
Johan is a member of a hunting party who get away once a year, usually to a game farm near Murraysburg in the Great Karoo. But he's more of a gatherer than a hunter...
'One time I was teased unmercifully when I came back from a game hunt with, not a bokkie [buck], but this huge, sunbleached tortoise shell! It was in perfect condition. I packed it away carefully in a wine box and brought it home.
'Another time, we were out hunting blesbok, the designated species for that day. I was busy looking at something, an interesting rock or piece of weathered wood, as I tend to do, when I caught sight of this buck out of the corner of my eye and instinctively took aim and fired. It was a clean shot! There was this long silence. To my amazement, I saw that it was a 120-kilogram red hartebeest! The guys were very impressed, and I felt proud, it was such a magnificent animal. The result was a mounted head, as a momento.'
Deep-sea fishing is more his thing than hunting, and he joins a group of friends on regular charters out of Gordon's Bay harbour. Wrestling with a 95-kilogram tuna some 42 sea miles out into the icy Atlantic is his way of keeping his waistline in check. Trim young son Gerrit, an avid rugby player, respectfully but grinningly reckons Pa (dad) is losing the battle with his pens (belly). 'But that's what makes me such a good tuna fisherman; I've got the weight on my side!'
Holidays with the family, which includes Gerrit's older teenage sister Cari, are spent at Agulhas and Struisbaai. 'We've got a regular booking for a little wooden house right on the beach, to the left of the lighthouse in Agulhas.' Here Johan can relax, go diving and fishing, and live off the sea.
Johan and Adri were high school sweethearts in Bonnievale. They share the need to nest, much like Johan's flock of little budgerigars and canaries in their aviary in an alcove at the front door. But there's one special bird that has the run of the house: Mango, Adri's orange and green parakeet, who has been known to nestle in her neck for hours at a time while she’s asleep.
Also in the aclove, leaning in a corner, is a memento of another precious living thing, the wooden vineyard post from that surviving patch of old chenin blanc bush vines, the promise of a special wine to come...
Baked kassler pork chops with pineapple rings recipe by Johan Joubert paired with Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection Barrel Fermented Chenin Bl...
Quick fix mushroom risotto recipe by Johan Joubert paired with Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection Barrel Fermented Chardonnay....