Sixty-one years ago Schalk-Willem Joubert left Wellington for the fertile Tradouw Valley to farm mainly with fruit and wine grapes.
His son, Jacobus Joubert, (Meyer's father realised) the potential of growing premium grape cultivars for the production of wine, and the first premium cultivars were planted on the farm in 1982: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.
The winemaking legend begins…
In the late 1990s, the realisation of a dream began when an old building on the farm was restored and converted into an ageing maturation cellar. The fermentation cellar was built in 1998 out of the stone from the rocky soils characteristic of the farm. In 1999, the first grapes were harvested and crushed for the production of wine. The R62 Merlot/Cabernet Blend (60/40) was released after a 14-month ageing period in Burgundy oak barrels. The production is currently just below 3000 cases “per year”.
The Winemaker
A viticulturist by trade, Meyer Joubert is also an award-winning winemaker. Having studied at Elsenburg in South Africa , he went on to work for two seasons in California 's famous Napa Valley before returning to South Africa to make his own wines.
Guido Franque, author of Monuments of SA Wine, had this to say: “Meyer was born into a farming family and, from a young age, he felt at home in the vineyards and fruit orchards. His extreme respect for nature springs from the fact that he is an agriculturalist. He can talk for hours on the positioning of the grapevines, as long as the discussion takes place in the vineyard, where he feels most at home. He beams when speaking of his newly planted Shiraz vineyards, a ‘piece of heaven…something unique is growing here'. In the area, people consider him crazy. Before him, not many had thought of making a great quality wine in Barrydale, the far-off Klein Karoo region. This is Meyer's dream. He perseveres — an established winemaker with a vision and a thorough knowledge of his natural biotype. He believes in little intervention during the winemaking process, his wine cellar is simple yet functional and appropriate regarding space, temperature and humidity. You would imagine yourself in an authentic barrel cellar somewhere in Chablis.”
Meyer, who was born in the Tradouw Valley , moved onto the farm in 1995 and currently lives there with his wife, Beate, and their four children Katerien (9yrs), Julia (7yrs), Andreas (5yrs) and Lena (4 months).
