What is the link between MCC and Gin? Stilbaai
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
An ancient vine became the inspiration behind one ofSouth Africa’s newest viticultural wards – Stilbaai (Still Bay) East – with Inverrouche as its sole member. Owners Lorna and Michael Scott teamed up with the Dept of Agriculture to trial the area and train locals in viticulture. Some five years later they have settled on Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc; the remaining trial varieties will be used in brandy distillation for use in liqueur production.
Meanwhile the Scotts are riding the craft distilling wave. Their distillery lies just outside Still Bay on the southern coast, nestled among vineyards, olive groves and fynbos*. It is a tranquil and ancient landscape where man survived the last ice age – and modern man emerged.
Gin has evolved over the course of a millennium from an herbal medicine and has always contained botanicals like juniper berries, cassia and cardamom. However the botanicals of choice at Inverrouche are fynbos, used for centuries by the Khoi and San people as medicinal and edible plants.
Distiller Michael Scott uses extracts of fynbos such as buchu, wild geranium, suurvygie, aloe, kankerbossie and rooibos, which are unique toAfrica. The terroir includes meters-deep limestone and groundwater is pumped by windmill from the limestone aquifers, while rainwater is harvested from the roofs of the farm buildings, stored underground and filtered for the distillery and domestic use.
The distillery is about as green as it gets. The building is made from limestone rock off the farm, and is naturally ventilated. The still – specially made in Stellenbosch – is wood-fired with invasive alien acacias, the harvesting of which provides jobs and helps with fire protection. Fynbos is collected in the veld in a sustainable fashion, and practically extinct species have been re-established.
But wait, there is more. Material left in the still after the distilling process is compacted, mixed with cement and moulded into cobblestones used to pave pathways on the farm and the floor of a huge underground cellar. The botanical waste is composted and put back into the soil.
Following re-grafting of the remaining trial vineyards, the Scotts will make either 2014 or 2015 their first harvest of Pinot Noir. They intend making bottle fermented sparkling wine with the help of Pieter ‘Bubbles’ Ferreira.
*Indigenous flora of the cape floral kingdom, the smallest yet richest in the world. It boasts the highest concentration of plant species 1300 per 10 000km2, more than triple found in South American rain forests.
Interested parties should contact Lorna Scott on 072 447 4211.
– Jonathan Snashall