Niels Verburg launched his Luddite brand 21 years ago while Cape wine was still conquering markets worldwide. Rand weakness made even the sale of bulk wine a profitable business. The prescient, lucky few who connected credible-sounding brands with access to the UK supermarkets parlayed enterprises conceived over a couple of liquid lunches into multimillion-rand operations.
Their route to wealth creation was not what Verburg had in mind. Something of a rugged frontiersman (he farms in Botrivier, beyond Elgin and closer to Caledon than the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley), Verburg conveyed his intentions in a perfectly designed brand he called “Luddite”. A label that looked as if it had been block stamped (and that is still hand numbered) was the packaging message of an equally uncompromising shiraz.
Verburg himself, larger than life, unashamedly colourful (he wears floral shirts that would be the envy of even the most sartorially dedicated residents of Honolulu), came to epitomise the brand.
He talks a good talk: it’s a polished minimal interference, the wine-makes-itself-if-the grapes-are-right spiel: an implied luddite approach to winemaking, expressing authenticity through the love-it-or-leave-it aesthetic of the man who conceived it. And it has worked for him, and for his loyal followers, like few other SA craft enterprises.
Luddite shiraz is a cult wine. Six thousand bottles of the 2020 vintage were bottled. They retail for R950 each, and the release is pretty much sold out. It’s always been an expensive wine, though it probably yields less net revenue for him now than it did when the first vintage was released two decades ago at the then almost inconceivable price of R125 per bottle. But it’s still good business, and over the years it has funded the creation of three other regular lines from his cellar: a Luddite chenin blanc, and the crown cap-closed red and white blends sold under the Saboteur label.
Liquorice whiff
The latest releases are all smart. The Luddite shiraz delivers plush, rich fruit (a hallmark of Verburg’s winemaking) though this one also has a fine, peppery note and the underlying liquorice whiff that appears in time in most of his vintages. The Saboteur white is delicious, with enough peach and stone fruit from the viognier component to bring a seductive charm to the fresh, dry, almost saline palate.
By a happy coincidence I found myself a day later tasting the full line-up of wines produced by Alexandra McFarlane, an emerging figure in the next generation of craft producers. Like Verburg her focus is on the primacy of the fruit, and she eschews manipulation and additions. Two decades after the launch of Luddite this may seem less exceptional than it did when Verburg began marketing his wine, but it’s done less often than it is claimed.
McFarlane has built her range on what she calls “heritage” varieties: cinsaut, chenin (and prospectively pinotage). The line that runs through her latest collection — the entry-level Capitoline Wolf range and the premium “Weekday” selection (Monday’s Child Chenin Blanc 2022, Tuesday’s Child Cinsaut 2022) — is a luminous freshness, pure and linear, and pleasingly low in alcohol.
It’s difficult not to like all of them: the Capitoline Wolf white, made from semillon and chenin, is bright, savoury and finely delineated. The rosé in the same range is nuanced, detailed and remarkably engaging. But the two wines that perfectly express what sets McFarlane Wines apart are the two 2022 “Weekday” wines — the chenin and the cinsaut. Both have arrived in the world fully formed, a Pre-Raphaelite presence to which nothing needs to be added and from which nothing can be taken away.
There is a common thread to both these enterprises and it lies in the passion and uncompromising dedication of the producers. Both own and carry the risk of bringing their vision to wine drinkers seeking high quality and authentically crafted wines. This is where the theatre ends and the real-life drama takes over.
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