Laborie Wines: Interview with Kobus van der Merwe

Sourcing only the finest grapes from the Western Cape region in South Africa, in this exclusive feature on Glass of Bubbly, we speak with Kobus Van der Merwe, the skilled winemaker at Laborie Wines, let’s discover a little about his life, his journey into the industry and one of his favourite bubbly memories.

It’s great to speak with you, Kobus, can you tell us a little about yourself and how your incredible journey into the wine industry began?

I grew up on a farm in a small town called Montagu in the Western Cape where my father and grandfather farmed with wine grapes, peaches, olives and apricots. I was always in love with the vineyards and the farming of it and I used to drive with my father to the wine cellar to deliver the grapes, from the farm, and that made me curious about the whole process of making wine. Initially, I only wanted to farm and went on to study Viticulture and Oenology. After finishing my studies one of my friends asked me to do a harvest with him at a winery and in the end, I ended up doing 3 harvests that year. First harvest in South Africa then New Zealand and later that year in Sonoma California. Here I am 19 years later and still learning, enjoying and loving what I am doing!

Do you remember your first experience with sparkling wine? When it was and what kind of label it was?

Looking back now, my introduction to tasting my first sparkling wine was not exciting as we all start with the easy and sweet wines. This really did not trigger my passion for sparkling wine but as my palate grew and started to enjoy the drier more serious sparkling wines I was introduced to Cap Classique at a Cap Classique tasting. It blew my mind and after this tasting, I started digging into the process of producing bottle fermented sparkling wine and it just pulled me in deeper and deeper. I produced my first Cap Classique in 2009 and have loved it since then.

To read the full interview, click HERE.