Hermit on the Hill, Pieter de Waal, and his long-standing friend and partner, Krige Visser, have been in the industry for many years and at the 2020 Platters guide walked off with one of the high-regarded Platter's 5 stars for their Mount Abora Koggelbos Chenin Blanc 2017.
The lads are not flashy or big aggressive marketers and quietly get on with sourcing grapes from older vineyards in the Swartland area and make awesome wines.
So it was particularly poignant when I came across an account from Pieter on Wed 15th April about their manual loading up of their 1996 Volksiebus getting ready for the wine to be exported to Belgium. Not a day later, the government changed its mind on the original decision to allow exports. The new regulation is that no alcohol may be transported unless for essential services.
This account from Pieter de Waal's Facebook account on Friday 17th April is simply heart-breaking:
''So Lohra De Waal and I went and loaded @MountAbora 140 cases of wine into our (50/50 ownership between myself and Wouter De Waal) 1996 Volksiebus destined for @ArnimWines Belgium. It was hard work but with Pink Floyd's The Wall playing at full volume in our Mojovino warehouse we had a good time and "locked down" the warehouse yesterday afternoon with the intent to do the delivery to Montague Gardens today at 11 am. All paperwork is in order with a print-out of the Government Gazette allowing the transport of wine for export.
So yesterday our esteemed minister of transport Fuckyoulwe Mparalula decided to ban the exporting of wine with immediate effect which means we will have to go and unload the 140 cases as it won't be good for the Volksiebus to have such a big load on it for a prolonged period of time. This is the clearest indication to date that we are no longer in "lockdown" but rather that this has become a bloodless "coup d'etat" initiated by the wannabe despots in our government (and no the DA cannot use this as a reason why they would be a better government as I have received a by-law for comment that the City of Cape Town wants to implement and it claims the same type of totalitarian powers as the national government is appropriating for itself''
This is just one of many wineries who are struggling with the current regime and one wonders what the real motivation is from the government.
The ban of the sales of alcohol have had a massive impact on the wine industry, and the banning, unbanning and re-banning are taking its toll on an industry which supports 300 000+ jobs and contributes a significant amount to the tax coffers.
We appreciate Vinpro and WOSA, who have been lobbying government constantly, and yet it seems this relationship is not really valued by the top dogs.