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David Traffordvintage 20 VINTAGE 20 Vintage 1992 was David Trafford’s fi rst ‘of- excessive and had to be diluted; ’87 was lost fi cial’ vintage, if wines made for market is entirely to the birds. the criterion applied. But this qualifi ed ar- David graduated in 1988 and, while work- chitect, who was still practising until a few ing for an architectural fi rm in London, spent years ago, has been making wine for close the 1989 northern hemisphere pressing on 30 years if what started as a ‘hobby’ is season at Château Soutard in Saint-Émilion, factored into the equation. Bordeaux. Upon his return to Mont Fleur It all began when his parents, Alastair and an architectural career in Cape Town, blend, released in 1993 under labels de- and Mavis Trafford, bought the 200-hec- he continued his weekend experiments with signed by the winemaker himself. tare Mont Fleur farm in 1976, realising a winemaking. He read up and gleaned practi- In the two decades since then, David long-held dream of establishing a wine cal tips from ‘exceedingly kind and helpful has remained true to his original winemak- farm. What was to become the home of De but I think rather bemused, and perhaps ing philosophy. Using non-interventionist Trafford wines lies at the end of a winding, frustrated vintners’. These included former methods in largely the same, essentially seemingly never-ending track through lush Meerlust cellarmaster Giorgio dalla Cia and artisanal winery (now slightly expanded for riverside vegetation and an oak forest up the Etienne le Riche [a member of the Guild, storage), he remains intent on expressing a narrow Blaauwklip Valley between the Stel- which the persistent young winemaker was sense of place in his wines. lenbosch and Helderberg mountains. eventually invited to join in 2000]. ‘I try to understand and work with the The family had moved down to the Cape vineyard to coax something magical from from KwaZulu-Natal when David was 13. RUSTIC SOPHISTICATION the land; after that it’s: hold thumbs I don’t After completingDavid his schooling at Diocesan TraffordDavid persevered with his ‘rustic’ methods. cock it up in the cellar.’ College (Bishops), he went on to study ar- Vinifying only what could be made in bar- From his initial 300 cases he’s ‘grown’ chitecture at the University of Cape Town. rel (thus focussing on reds initially), he kept to just 3 500 12-bottle packs of De Traf- While his father was converting former things au naturel: using a homemade hand ford wines. These still come from selected grazing land into what was to become one crusher/destemmer and a small basket grapes from three specifi c Stellenbosch and of the Cape’s largest vine rootstock mother press; fermenting in oak with wild yeasts Helderberg vineyards, as well as the original plantations to supply nurseries and other only; employing a hand pump for gentle plantings on Mont Fleur’s mountainsides. ‘I never chose winemaking as a growers with new plant material, David racking; fi ning with natural egg white; leav- A smidgen of shiraz and pockets more started making red wine ‘for consumption ing his wines unfi ltered; designing his own of cabernet, cabernet franc and merlot were profession; it was thrust upon by family and friends’. He bought in grapes labels, affi xed by hand. subsequently added to bring the Mont Fleur before he and his father decided to plant In 1991 he constructed a small, partly un- vineyard to a grand total of fi ve hectares. me. I chose architecture as a their own tiny vineyard in 1983: some three derground winery tunnelled out of a slope. These high-lying young vines were planted hectares of mainly cabernet sauvignon, cab- Until then he’d been using a cobwebbed on carefully chosen virgin soil and are the profession. But living on land ernet franc, merlot and pinot noir. outbuilding attached to his equally ‘rustic’ source of his signature De Trafford wines: A record of his early ‘trial and error’ at- bachelor’s pad, keeping an eye on his wines the Syrah 393 and the Elevation 393 (a with such great vineyard poten- tempts, rendered with David’s typically dry through a handy hatchway an arm’s length traditional Bordeaux mix of varieties with tial, it was impossible not to get sense of humour, reads as follows: in ’84 a from his architect’s drawing board. shiraz). The names refer to the home vine- barrel of cabernet exploded; the ’85 crop Vintage 1992 saw his fi rst commercially yard’s altitude. involved in the wine business.’ refused to ripen ‘and thankfully our entire made wines under the De Trafford label: Shiraz, he confesses, is the variety that production was stolen’; ’86 sugars were a Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Noir and a red most enthrals him, and it shows: his De DAVID TRAFFORD 163 political party leaders in the run-up to to the Cape, an alternative to the increas- ‘Our straw wine is like a dessert on its Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Priorat [Spain]’ The fi rst, highly distinctive wines under South Africa’s fi rst democratic elections in ingly ubiquitous chardonnay in providing own; I usually have it after I’ve had pud- stretching along a plateau between Malgas the Sijnn label (the name by which the river the early 1990s.] a wooded white that could still express the ding. But it’s also good with Rita’s vanilla and Cape Infanta. was known by the region’s former indig- ‘I saw Rita’s CV before I saw her,’ admits natural fruit of the grape. ice cream, orange cake and yoghurt; and The former ostrich and grain farm called enous Khoisan inhabitants) were made in David with a bashful smile. They were mar- Although not overly keen on entering cheese and biscuits and nuts …’ Lemoentuin came on the market in 2003. rented cellar space in Stellenbosch in 2007. ried in 1994, spending a two-month honey- competitions and wine shows, he admits Running from the plateau down to the The sole vineyard within a radius of 40 kilo- moon travelling in the European winelands, quite frankly that he entered the challenge Breede River, it was snapped up by the Traf- metres and quite unlike its nearest viticul- specifi cally Champagne and Saint-Émilion. mainly in the hopes of perhaps ‘winning a ‘I took a bottle of our straw wine fords with backing from investors: environ- tural terroirs, it now forms part of the newly Now the parents of teenage son Nicholas trip to the Loire to explore chenin further’. mental businessman Quentin Hurt and Si- designated Malgas wine ward. and young daughter Rosalyn, the two share It was there he became convinced that along on a trip to Tanzania to mon Farr of UK importers Bibendum Wine. ‘Still a work in progress,’ says David. But a love of nature and all things creative, from naturally fruity South African chenin blanc, Some 15 hectares of naturally low-yielding the aim is to eventually deliver three wines art and design to food and wine (each vin- seriously treated in barrel to come into its have at the top of Kilimanjaro bush vine reds suited to the Mediterranean ‘fully expressive of the already strong sense tage of the De Trafford Chenin Blanc fea- own after just a few years in bottle, offered a conditions were planted: shiraz, mourvèdre, of place these early vintages are showing’: a tures one of her artworks). unique alternative to the highly acidic Loire in 2004. Alcohol at altitude is cabernet sauvignon, two port varieties also red, a white and a rosé. There is also a plan ‘Nicholas at 15 is quite into food and wines that required decades in bottle before suitable for table wine (touriga naçional and to build a small cellar there sometime: a loves going out to good restaurants, while becoming drinkable. Similarly, such seri- not wise, but we enjoyed the rest trincadeira) and three whites (chenin blanc, good excuse for the architect vintner to pull Rosalyn, who’s 12, occasionally gets crea- ous Cape chenins provided a pleasing new viognier and roussanne). his drawing board closer … tive in the kitchen.’ David was a dab hand in middle-of-the-road option in a market long of the bottle in the Serengeti.’ the kitchen himself ‘until I married a quali- dominated by full-bodied chardonnays on fi ed chef!’ A few years ago it was his turn, the one side and distinctively crisp, some- though, after a Guild team tasting compe- times tart sauvignon blancs on the other. One national wine competition De Trafford tition organised by fellow Guild member David (by now a Guild member) duly does occasionally enter is the SA Trophy Bruce Jack saw David’s ‘team’ win one of repeated his Chenin Challenge success in Wine Show. And, in 2003, this tiny cellar, Trafford Shiraz 2007, now renamed the the famed ‘men-only’ Kitchen Cowboys 2002 with his Keermont 2001, sharing the having won the trophy for best merlot and Syrah 393, scored an almost unheard-of- cookery courses with South African celeb- award with another advocate of the poten- best cabernet sauvignon, as well as the for-the-Cape 95 [on the 100-point scale] in rity chef Peter Goffe-Wood. tial of wooded chenin blanc, Teddy Hall [a merlot being judged best red tasted, shared leading American wine publication Wine fellow Guild member]. top honours with vaunted corporate-owned Spectator in 2010. Hall had won the previous year, prompt- winery Vergelegen as the most successful David continues to live with his wines, ‘There are so many things one ing David with his trademark dry wit to producer on show.
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