Baardskeerdersbos (beard shaver bush) is a name to conjure with. Cape Town’s gorgeous, pouting, wine retailer Caroline Rillema obviously thinks it’s got more potential than being Dal Josaphat by the sea, the last refuge of unreconstructed hippies, artists and boom (ambiguity intentional) enthusiasts. GVG makes this deduction from the couple of hectares of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc she’s planted, helped by action man Wayne Gabb.

Wayne in his World

Wayne was in apples in Elgin for sixteen years and he’s now a pioneer of grape farming near Cape Agulhas on his 1000 ha Lomond operation along with partner Dave Mostert, erstwhile pretzel king turned Pinnacle Point property potentate. With land costs of R4000 per hectare and a 110 ha Landbank-funded dam that supplies water to Gansbaai and other burgeoning coastal communities, Wayne and Dave are in for R10K a planted vineyard hectare of which they’ve got 120. Economists may wish to compare and contrast this figure to the R130K it costs to plant a hectare of vineyards in Stellenbosch, before capital cost of the land.

And inferior terroir for grassy Sauvignon Blanc at least, if the slew of trophies and medals Wayne’s wines have trousered over the past few years, is any measure. GVG and Wayne were discussing the soft and subtle tannins of his Lomond lovelies over roast butternut and thyme pannacotta with caramelized onion followed by roast pork neck with bean cassoulle and apple relish at the restaurant of the eco-lodge at Grootbos. GVG preferred the Pincushion single vineyard 2007 Sauvignon Blanc with its tropical flintiness while Wayne was a Sugarbush baby for its weighty palate and 10g/l of natural acidity.

Talk turned to February 1 2006 when Grootbos was raised to the ground by a devastating veld fire. Wayne recounted how he knew they were in trouble when hundreds of tortoises moved out of the thick fynbos on the mountains and into the grassland, the better to survive the fire, which at that stage was still over 15Km away. “We couldn’t even see the fire or smell the smoke, but the tortoises knew it was coming” remembers Wayne.

Surveying Grootbos today, the only hint of total devastation is the two and a half million sewejaartjies, paper-like flowers that emerge after fire and last for seven years (hence the name).

Grootbos owner Michael Lutzeyer was caressing a sewejaartjie absentmindedly as he reminisced about the disaster and the struggle to get back up and running by October 2006. Of course fire is a natural phenomenon, essential for fynbos propagation. “It was not all bad news. Since the fire we’ve discovered a lot of new plant species” he says with a smile.

Michael and his sevejaartjie

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