There’s no chip on this shoulder, no point to prove – he’s simply passionate about family and about chenin blanc. He’s the winemaker (slash marketer) for Opstal Estate, located up on a ridge in the Slanghoek Valley (a sub-region of the Breedekloof).
Opstal is his ancestral home; his family have been here for seven generations, the farm goes to 1847, as does the homestead where he resides with his young family. Once largely an area known for its wine co-op, where local growers would send their grapes; it was 4th generation Carl Everson who changed track and decided to make his own wine instead, setting in motion a single-mindedness inherited by his descendants.
An impossibly beautiful place, the Breede River Valley could be the stony stage for the likes of King Arthur or Lord of the Rings – an epic come to life. It has a long, wide valley, scooped out between staggering rocky mountains, strung with waterfalls in the summer, capped with snow in the winter. The Breede River and its tributaries are responsible for its agricultural success, a lifeblood pumping through its sedimentary veins for time immemorial.
The first time I met Attie was in the tasting room at Opstal, over a decade ago. He lit up my imagination with legends from the area, the most famous of which is how the Slanghoek (snake corner) got its name. The San people, who inhabited this terrain over ten thousand years ago, were said to have been terrified of a snake with an emerald on its head, whose dominion was the wetlands of the river.
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