Entering the winemaking enterprise is not for the faint of coronary heart. Doing so with no prior expertise, on the edge of a desert the place temperatures hit 50 levels Celsius (122 levels Fahrenheit), is likely to be thought of foolhardy. But for Rudie van Vuuren, the gamble paid off.
Van Vuuren is the managing director of Neuras Wine and Wildlife Estate, 140 miles south of Windhoek, Namibia. Situated in the foothills of the Naukluft Mountains, on the fringe of the Namib Desert, the boutique operation is, in response to its house owners, the driest winery exterior of the Atacama Desert in Chile. Wrangling a hostile local weather in addition to hungry baboons, Neuras has plotted a journey from newbie enthusiasm to award-winning winemaking, placing this distant nook of Africa on the grape-growing map.
In latest years the tiny winery has received worldwide medals, together with golds and double golds, for its pink wine, ruby dessert wine and “nappa” (a spirit much like grappa).
The vineyard supervisor says that none of this may have occurred with out the unlikely assist of a leopard known as Lightning.
Van Vuuren had lived a number of lives earlier than pursuing winemaking. A medical physician who was additionally a member of the Namibian nationwide cricket and rugby groups —and who performed at World Cups in each sports activities — he grew to become a conservationist.
In 2009, Van Vuuren was in a helicopter, monitoring a leopard, Lightning, which had been rescued then launched into the wild. Suddenly under him appeared a desert oasis. The land, he realized, belonged to a retired Shell government who had nurtured vines on a small space of his 14,500-hectare tract. Van Vuuren descended to tell him there was a giant cat on his property and fell in love with the winery — and its wine.
“I went back and told Marlice (van Vuuren, Rudie’s wife) about the place and she just said, ‘Is there water? What’s the camp look like? What do the roads look like?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘I didn’t look at any of that, I just looked at the wine — and we’re going to buy Neuras.’”
In 2011, the winery and surrounding land grew to become half of the couple’s conservation program, the Naankuse Foundation.
“It was perfect,” mentioned Van Vuuren. The web site could possibly be used as a launch level for battle animals into the neighboring Namib Naukluft National Park, “and on top of that, you had the economic engine of winemaking” — the proceeds of which may fund their conservation work.
Without any skilled information of winemaking, the Van Vuurens’ engine was by no means prone to hit high gear. It took the couple over a decade to rent the proper particular person to raise their part-time enterprise right into a critical enterprise. That particular person was South African winemaker Braam Gericke.
Gericke talks about winemaking in mystical phrases (“it’s not work, it’s a form of art;” “you don’t change vineyards based on what you want; vineyards change you”) however his deft contact has paid dividends. “He was the one who cracked the code,” mentioned Van Vuuren.
Grapes are grown below netting to maintain off hungry baboons and kudus (massive antelopes) that roam the space. Each January, half a dozen staff harvest grapes by hand between 6 a.m. and seven:30 a.m. exactly, says Gericke, earlier than the warmth of the day units in. After barrel fermentation for 12-18 months, a “really old school” handbook bottling line is arrange, the place not more than 200 bottles of a given wine are produced in a season.
“I like to think of it as Old World winemaking meeting New World winemaking,” he added.
The location’s secret sauce is how the vines are watered. In a area that may obtain as little as 5mm (less than half an inch) of annual rainfall, Neuras has the success of sitting on a basin with 5 underground freshwater springs.
“It’s the purest form of water that you can get,” mentioned Gericke. He says the water has been carbon dated and takes 1,800 years to achieve the level the place it is collected and used in a drip irrigation system.
“We considered expanding the vineyard when we started being successful, and then sanity prevailed,” mentioned Van Vuuren. In reality, he defined, a water examine of the property discovered that the winery couldn’t increase with the accessible sources.
“We now respect what nature has decided for us. We’re going to keep the vineyard small (and) we are going to make sure the quality is where it is now, and gets even better,” he added.
The ability of Gericke and his staff, in addition to time and climate, will play a big half in the winery’s future success.
Climate change is making winemaking an more and more risky enterprise. Many wine rising areas round the world could possibly be unsuitable for grape rising ought to the planet breach 2 levels Celsius (3.6 levels Fahrenheit) of human-induced local weather change, in response to a 2024 report. The race is on for winemakers: vineyards are ripping up vines to replace them with more resilient varieties, and a few European producers are wanting north to land with related rising circumstances to futureproof their companies (see: champagne houses buying up parts of Kent in the UK).
Does Neuras provide a blueprint for fulfillment?
“We grow and make wine in extreme conditions. Intense heat, little rain … (and) climate change (is) only amplifying that,” mentioned Van Vuuren. “So instead of resisting, we try and learn to adapt.”
“Our water management approach takes every element into consideration: cultivar, temperature, soil composition, depth of the vine’s roots. It’s a science on its own,” he added. “You have to listen to the vine. It tells you what it needs and when.”
That mentioned, Neuras has one eye on essential adjustments. The winery is exploring rising Pinotage, a pink grape, identified for its resilience and decrease water necessities, mentioned Van Vuuren, on an unconventional trellis system higher suited to dry circumstances.
“While water limits physical expansion, it inspires smarter viticulture,” he added.