I tarried a pleasant hour on the slate-tiled wall outside Anglo American’s 55 Marshall Street office waiting for Rose’s Taxis one Friday evening two weeks ago. It was a long wait as Rose’s switchboard had left for Christmas lunch and the overweight and overworked replacement dispatcher had an effective algorithm for dealing with irate callers enquiring after taxis that failed to appear – ignore the phone. Which gave me plenty of time to ponder the sinkhole in Marshall Street opening up in front of Africa’s largest mining house. Was this a ventilation shaft for GauTrain? The Oppenheimers (erstwhile owners of Anglo) turning in their graves in sympathy with the 25% of head office staff “separated” from the company on Monday? Further evidence of the breakdown of infrastructure in Jozi? Probably all of the above, with neither observation (Roses and the sinkhole) giving much confidence in the city’s state of readiness for the soccer World Cup next year. A fiasco is predicted.

At least the weather was behaving itself. Or not, as it does on a Highveld summer evening when thunderstorms pile in from behind the Top Star drive-in south of the city. The gusting wind was stirring up mini tornados of rubbish in the street and while considering whether to duck into the sheltering reception, something warm and furry crash-landed on my head and started nesting in my hair. A mossie. Could this be Noonie-Noo, the feathered familiar of Bridget Davidtsz last seen in Wellington, disappearing towards the horizon at a rate of knots in the grip of a black South Easter? How long would it take a mossie to fly the thousand miles from Wellington to Marshalltown, I wondered.

Noonie-Noo

My squatter (informal settler) was quite possibly Noonie-Noo, as next day I received a call from Bridget informing me of her next mission: to save the Cape Parrot. Of course not hers, named Mo Snavel, who has been saved already. But could we please meet to discuss media strategies for saving Cape Parrots, oh and to taste the next vintage of her barrel fermented Chenin Blanc (the 2008) and some Cape to Cairo Syrah 2007 from Otto Gerntholtz, who is also involved in the parrot project.

Well Otto’s Syrah was totally stunning, luscious and ripe like the continent itself with those slippery tannins so characteristic of the cultivar. The packaging was like a page from the diary of Dr. Livingstone searching for the source of the Nile and R700 for six bottles in a wooden case your porter can carry on his head, is a fair price to pay for an African dream. Jambo, Bwana! Hakuna Matata! However I do hope that Marshalltown was not a pit stop for Noonie-Noo on a transcontinental migration to Cairo. With a three year lifespan, he’ll be lucky to reach Salisbury!

The story of Noonie-Noo starts with Bridget’s maiden vintage Chenin Blanc. A 2007, the plan was to feature a wild mossie called Noonie-Noo that had adopted Bridget as mother, on the label. A wild bird as wine label is most unexpected as the Noo and her kind are sworn enemies of grape farmers. In Riebeek-Kasteel, vines are covered in huge protective bird nets while Constantia looks like a giant outdoor disco with sparkling Eagle Eyes, pyramids of glass mounted on vine poles, refracting sunlight to deter any would be avian snackers.

Noonie-Noo was snatched from her Bovlei nest at a tender age by Carnivore, a cat straight out of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot. A dead ringer for Macavity, Carnivore lost an ear to a lynx in his youth and has the most impressive collection of war wounds. The colour of old tobacco, the overall affect is quite sinister in a JG Ballard “Crash” kind of way.

Rescued by Bridget, the Noo was weaned on ProNootro (“that’s why she’s so clever”) through a tiny syringe, and the pair were inseparable: Noonie-Noo traveled to work in Maitland with surrogate mother, nestling on mom’s collar bone. Sometimes they would pitstop on the M2 verge at Kayalitsha where the Noo’s favourite wild grasses grew.

Learning to fly came naturally and happened suddenly one morning. But disaster nearly struck one Boschendal picnic. Noonie-Noo had just got her wings and was enjoying the fresh air on Bridget’s head when startled she flew up into one of the grand spreading oaks on Cecil John Rhodes’ former estate. Impromptu pyramids of tourists intent on rescue scared Noonie-Noo higher up the tree. The Stellenbosch fire brigade refused to come out (“laaydie, we’s don’t rescue birds after one of the ou’s came short trying to save an owl”) but Franschhoek responded with sirens and two fire trucks – but not a ladder between them. “Don’t worry, we’ll shoot it down with our water cannon” was the fire chief’s plan, which sent tourists scattering and Bridget into hysterics.

After the water ran out and the fire brigade went home, the coast now clear, Noonie-Noo fluttered back onto Bridget’s head. Which makes her appearance on a bottle label, well earned. Bridget’s maiden vintage was a single barrel of wine made from Chenin Blanc grapes grown on Nabygelegen, a boutique farm in the Bovlei under the Du Toitskloof Mountains, whose own 2007 wooded Chenin is a complete mismark at R52. Especially when you note that grapes are sold to fashionista producers who ask more than four times this price. Owner James Mckenzie denies that he has plans to change the name of his farm to Noo-bygelegen.

Bridget’s day job is working for Columbit, the largest supplier of barrels in the world, from whence she sourced her tight grained oak cask in which her Chenin matured for 11 months. Research conducted by Pascal Chatonnay at the University of Bordeaux confirms that it is the tightness of grain rather than the forest the wood came from, that determines wine quality. And this one has got the balance, right.

Bottled under screwcap (or “Noo-cap” as Bridget calls it), a couple of hundred bottles were released at R100 each and the follow up vintage has now been released. R100 seems an awfully cheap price to pay for the saga of Noonie-Noo, a story surely destined to become a major Disney feature film and a rich, serious oak-matured Chenin that will last a decade or more.

Bridget and the Noo

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