I was particularly excited for my visit to Citrusdal Winery. They are the producer of Six Hats wine, a brand I can say that I've had the pleasure of drinking many times in New York. Whenever IPSA serves wine at its organized events, we do our best to support Fairtrade wine if our budget permits. Quite often our Fairtrade wine of choice is Six Hats, so it was a great pleasure to meet the wine grape producers and see the winemaking facilities. It was an honor to have Jaco, the head winemaker at Citrusdal Wines, collect me from my B&B and drive me to Bergendal Boerdery, the FT certified farm from where he gets his wine grapes from.
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Marc, JB Chairperson, in front of the community projector funded
with FT premium. Marc was particularly proud of this project because he
played a huge role
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We visited Bergendal Boerdery, the wine grape producer for Citrusdal Wines. I was a bit confused at first, but Bergendal Bordery is one of 3 FT certified producers farms from where Citrusdal Wines sources its grapes from. Citrusdal Wines has a contract with Bergendal Boerdery and pays them a FT premium of $0.05/kilo of grapes purchased. In addition to wine grapes Bergendal Boerdery also produces FT certified citrus and rooibos tea.
I got to speak with Marc, who is the Bergendal Boerdery's JB Chairperson. One aspect I respected about Bergendal's JB was that hold elections every 2 years. By doing so they maximize the number of workers who gain leadership experience in a JB position. Marc has been the JB Chairperson for about 9 months. He spoke about the most recent premium funded project - a projector installed in their community center. Marc takes particular pride in the completion of this project because he was the person who initially suggested the idea at an annual meeting and was pleased to know that everyone in the community agreed. Not only did he also take the lead on pricing and ordering logistics, but even helped with the final installation. The projector is used by seasonal workers on the weekend, children after school, celebratory community events, and training sessions.
Interestingly enough, Citrusdal Winery is the only winemaking company located in Citrusdal, while most others are located in the Stellenbosch/Robertson area that I visited earlier in the trip. I asked Jaco what advantage the location of Citrusdal has in winemaking, over its more popular competitors Stellenbosch and Robertson. Apparently wine grapes are best when picked in cool weather. Bergendal Boerdery is located on a mountaintop in Citrusdal where the weather is much cooler. While wineries in Stellenbosch benefit from better soil, grapes must be picked around 3 or 4am when the weather is cool. For this reason many wineries are reverting to machinery for picking wine grapes since its difficult to find employees who will work in the middle of the night. However in Citrusdal the weather is much cooler on average so employees don't have to wake up so early to pick grapes, and also get a higher quality from relying on hand-picked product.
After our visit to Bergendal Boerdery, Jaco led me through the winemaking facilities. When asked what the greatest challenge was in producing wine for the Fairtrade market, his response was being audited so many times per year. Since Jaco sources grapes about 10 farms, of which 3 are FT certified, auditors are interested in traceability - making sure that FT wine grapes don't mix with the non-FT wine grapes. Below the tank is clearly labeled FLO WYN - obviously 'Fairtrade certified wine'.
We tasted wine straight from the steel tanks so there weren't even labels on the bottle yet. He said he was prepping some shipments for a client in the US anyway, so I decided to jump in. I tasted wine alongside Jaco and his official wine taster. Pretty neat. Typically a red wine drinker, I have become a fan of the whites. Among the three reds (pinotage, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz) and 3 whites sampled (chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and chenin blanc), my favorite was the sauvignon blanc.
You can find out more about Citrusdal Wines by visiting them at their website: http://www.citrusdalwines.co.za/
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