The Cape’s wine regions are filled with surprises. I had heard of Lomond wines and met the director, Wayne Gabb, at a function in Paarl a year ago. He mentioned that his vineyards were probably closer to Cape Agulhas than any other, and invited me to visit them if ever I was in that part.
He also said his vines were rather new, and I expected to find a small patch of vineyards struggling among the Cape fynbos.
Ethene and I followed the directions he’d given, past Standford, toward De Kelders, turn off at Grootbos… then we ran into trouble.
The scooters’ little wheels can cope with most road conditions, but not deep, soft sand.
The road was under construction and had been churned into a dust-bowl of soft, powdery sand.
We stopped and I called Wayne to tell him we were giving up on the visit.
He was having none of that. In minutes his 4x4 bakkie emerged through the dust to collect us. We left our scooters as Grootbos private nature reserve and accompanied him along the horrible un-made road.
As we crested a rise a most amazing vista greeted us.
Among the rough, tangled alien bush was a vast stretch of immaculately tended vineyards surrounding a large expanse of blue water.
In the 10 years since Wayne has been working on the Lomond project he has created a model wine farm out of 200 hectares of unused alien scrubland. The vineyards total some 100 hectares in area. Not a small operation.
The dam itself covers an area close to 100 hectares in extent and supplies water to surrounding municipalities and neighbouring properties.
A carefully worked-out water management plan ensures that water users receive supplies all year round.
The name Lomond, with its Scottish connotation, was decided on because the two mountain peaks in the background are known as Ben Nevis and Ben Lomond, apparently named by Scots survivors of the wreck of the Birkenhead. Rumour has it they buried the missing Birkenhead gold somewhere in that area. “We always plough just a bit deeper in case we find that gold,” Wayne says with a grin.
Around the vineyards the alien vegetation has been removed and the veld restore to pristine fynbos. Most of the farmers in the area are committed to ecologically responsible practices and are planning to develop eco-tourism in the valley.
As here are no proper tasting facities at Lomond yet (you can find the range at the Bergkelder in Stelenbosch) we drove to the neighbouring guest farm, called simply “Farm 215.”
Over a fine summer lunch we tasted Lomond’s single vineyard sauvignon blancs, called Sugarbush and Pincushion, after the vynbos species that grew there.
It was particularly interesting to see how the 2007 Pincushion had matured. Still lively and fresh as ever it put paid to the outdtated idea that South African white wines should not be aged.
I’ve always been a shiraz lover, and I was not disappointed by the elegantly structured Conebush Syrah 2007. Wayne has managed to achieve a superb balance of flavours, with fruit, spice and wood blending together in delicious harmony.
We returned to our scooters clutching the remains of a bottle or two of Lomond’s products to enhance our supper.
There’s more to this trip than just wine, so we pulled in to the cheese factory at Klein River to sample and buy some of their products – Gruyere, Grana and smoked Sir Robert Stanford hard cheese.
Our scooters will be groaningly overweight when we finally head back home.
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