We have all had to face the damaging impact of Covid-19, but none more so than in South Africa as wine producer, Bruce Jack, explains in this deeply personal account of life on the front line of a pandemic and government alcohol ban.
This is going to sound strange, but…I knew something unusual would happen in 2020.
Exactly a year ago I flew into Barcelona to start our annual La Báscula winemaking trip. Ed Adams MW, my partner, flew in from Bath and I from Cape Town, because our main hub is Pepé Fuster’s winery just outside the town of Gandesa in the underexplored, intriguing wine region of Terra Alta, just south-west of Barcelona.
A day’s blending with Pepé is always followed by a traditional Catalan dinner at Restaurant Angel in Pinell de Brai. This ancient, secluded village is home to an alluring, Gaudi-inspired cooperative cellar. Built in 1919, architect Cèsar Martinell blended traditional Catalan architecture and the ‘modernista’ aesthetic – it is cathedral-like and beautiful.
An early start the following morning with temperatures just below 0oC and the long drive across Spain to Santiago de Compostella in Rias Baixas, via Olite and time with our partners in Rioja, Bodegas Manzanos. Freezing fog on the highlands and snow in the mountain passes are always a shock after the blustery heat of a Cape summer. But if you know where to look, Spanish truck-stop food can be a wonder of the culinary world and I was soon in the zone.
Four days later we were blending Albarino with our partners in Galicia at Pazo de Cilleiro. That evening we celebrated our fifteenth La Báscula vintage at the stately bar in the bowels of the imposing Hostal dos Reis Católicos, right next to Santiago Cathedral on Obradoiro Square. I love bars and churches, especially when they are this impressive and alongside one another.
Five days strategizing and talking wine with one of the most experienced and intelligent MWs around is inspirational and just the tonic I need heading into a challenging South African harvest.
Shadowy concern
It was a wonderful trip – maybe the most rewarding yet, but I flew home with a shadowy concern hanging ominously around the fringes of my sunny outlook.
While drinking through a magnificent line-up of Licor de Hierbas (the captivating and generally misunderstood Galician herbal liqueur) the night before, we had discussed the new virus making headlines. We both noted how dramatic the Chinese reaction had been to the Wuhan outbreak – clearly something different from previous health threats, requiring extraordinary action. And if there is one truth I am sure of, actions speak louder than words.
In my little notebook on the flight back I did a scenario planning exercise for the year ahead – I use Clem Sunter’s methodology – the Suffolk-born, Winchester College man I first heard speak as a schoolboy in the early 1980s. He was traveling around South Africa outlining a ‘high road’ and a ‘low road’ for the country – the ‘high road’ required the Apartheid government to negotiate with the exiled ANC and begin the process of Mandela’s release – not something many considered plausible then.
Interestingly, Sunter, was also the only person to predict (in one of his scenario planning books) the 9/11 ‘plane attacks on the World Trade Towers. By the time I landed, my Sunter scenario rubric had filled me with dread.
Despite ridicule by friends, I prepared for impending Armageddon by arranging for our team to work from home and restocking the farm larder with eclectic booze supplies. I focused on a diverse range of spirits and mixers with the goal of having a different cocktail every night for six months during a China-style lockdown.
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