Martin Moore looks with satisfaction at his budding vines,
and at (most of) the returning birds

It’s probably the best time of the year, early spring. From where I am, I look out over the vineyards surrounding the cellar. Everywhere the crop cover between the vine rows is changing colour. The dark green of winter, now changing to yellowish brown, is being replaced by the tender green of the new shoots. As always, the Chardonnay is the first to bud, albeit a month late due to the long, cold winter. Already there is a tell-tale sign promising a good year: almost all the shoots bear two fledgling bunches, whereas under less favourable conditions there would only be one with a tendril where the second bunch should have developed.

It is also the time of year when the birds return from their winter sojourn in the northern hemisphere, and suddenly the sky over the cellar is filled again with hundreds of swirling swallows, sharing that space with everything from pelicans to pigeons with raptors high above effortlessly gliding on the air currents. And I think of how lucky they are living in relative safety these days. In the early years of the European settlement things were very different, when everything feathered risked ending up on the dinner table – turtle-doves, flamingos, cormorants, pelicans (the dried craws of the latter were also popular as tobacco pouches). Penguin eggs were in great demand, not so the birds which, being so rich in oil, were used, rather gruesomely, as firewood. (I can hear the toes of my conservation friends curling up!).

Impudent little critters
My bucolic mood is only spoilt by the starlings which this time of year manage to find their way into the cellar through every nook and cranny, building their nests, rearing their young and in general making a mess in an environment we try to keep as hygienic as possible. Keeping them out is a battle waged every year. This time round we thought we had outwitted them: on expert advice we installed on the roof four small revolving pyramids of mirrors that produce blinding flashes as they turn and catch the sun. The pigeons are now keeping a safe distance, but the starlings? No way. These impudent little critters strut around on the roof unconcerned, walking with their stiff-legged gait right up to the mirrors and peering into them as if admiring their reflection.

A relaxing time of year?
Despite my firm denials in the past there somehow still seems to exist among outsiders the impression that winemakers only work during the vintage. They believe once the young wines are safely in the tanks or barrels, we sit back and, in a manner of speaking, scratch our navels staring into the distance.

Nothing could be further from the truth. You need only see my sizeable paunch to realise how hard I have been working at marketing these last few months. Such as at the most enjoyable “winemaker’s dinner” for 110 guests at the Ushaka Marine World in Durban. (For those lacking a proper grounding in geography: apart from the name there is much that separates Durban, that sizeable harbour city on the coast of Kwazulu-Natal, and our humble village of Durbanville. The only connection is that both are named for Sir Benjamin D’Urban, governor at the Cape from 1834 to 1838. Both were initially known as D’Urban. Our name was changed to Durbanville in 1886 to avoid confusion  – as if people would ever confuse the two!)

And on 4 October we will be serving our wines at the major annual fundraiser for Wo+man Against Child Abuse in the Johannesburg City Hall involving five top chefs, 12 courses (see what I mean!) and more than 300 guests. Called Chefs in the City this is going to be a real glamour affair.

Health drink or sports drink?
I often talk about the health-giving properties of our wines, but I wonder sometimes whether they do not perform equally well as sports drinks, as we often also welcome sports teams to the cellar. In September we played host to the visiting Australian cricket team as well as to the Cheetahs rugby team from the Free State. (I want to deny any rumours that their visit to Durbanville Hills had anything to do with the Cheetahs losing to Western Province at Newlands a few days later. Come to think of it, the Australians didn’t do all that well in the T20 World Cup either!)

• This contribution is extracted, with permision, from the Durbanville Hills September newsletter. It may be read in full on the Durbanville Hills website.