The Restaurateur
“My Afrikaans is nie net vir selfverdediging nie.” / “My Afrikaans isn’t just for self defence.” - Ken Forrester.
Ken Forrester learned Afrikaans in the army. He had to. With a shock of white hair, a pride of dogs shadowing him, and a slight limp from a recent mountain biking accident, he powers through despite the discomfort. He meets Kleinjan, Michael, and me one morning in summer, in front of the Ken Forrester Vineyards tasting room, on the 50ha family farm. “The biggest piece of land we couldn’t afford.” There’s a wine bottle hanging in front of the tasting room, a board behind it stating the obvious: Bottle is wet - Rain; Bottle is dry - Not raining; Bottle is gone - Tornado. Encapsulating the spirit of the place.
Mid-Life Crisis
He takes his time walking us around the farm at the foot of Helderberg. “This mountain determines us completely.” With soils washed down the slopes, winds and rain determined by its aspects, altitude, and proximity to the ocean. The Ken Forrester range of wines was one born of necessity he says. He bought the farm in 1994, coming from a background in hospitality with Sol Kerzner’s Southern Sun hotel group (he says Sol made him understand that you can do ANYTHING). Having become a restaurateur himself, and at the age of 35, in the middle of what he calls a raging midlife crisis, he bought the farm with only enough money to pay for the deposit. They HAD to make it work, though “mid-life” at 35 seems a bit harsh.
A Human Approach
I think what determines Ken’s approach is its very humanity. His hotel experience meant he was unafraid of people (some winemakers, while unafraid, do not necessarily LIKE people) and ended up making wine FOR the people, instead of a preconceived personal style or passion, using the raw materials he had. Which, given the feedback, has proven to be a grand success, specifically with reference to the Decanter Best in Show accolade recently awarded his Old Vine Chenin 2021. While Ken admits his range of wines might not be in line with the requirements of an accountant or corporately run business, it has grown organically, and as wine tends to do, one vintage at a time. “A wonderful limitation,” he says. The idea that you only have one opportunity each year to get it right - a loaded challenge.
The Ken Forrester Ideology
According to Ken, only about 1% of all wine drinkers are actual wine geeks and thus unconcerned about specific clones, barrel toast, terroir etc. They’re trusting YOU to know what you’re doing and merely want to know that every time they drink your wine, they’re assured a quality, enjoyable drink. As such, the ideology of Ken Forrester wines depends on a few principles, some of which I will attempt to unpack here.
The Principles
Firstly, the use of screw-cap, all Ken Forrester wines became screw-cap from 2005, the living state of cork proving too variable, especially at the entry-level tier. Secondly, the concept of a 100-point wine. NOT Robert Parker rated, but as rated by YOU. While absentmindedly reaching for a bottle while cooking, taking a sip and thinking: YES, I love this. Seeking it out whenever you’re looking for something effortlessly enjoyable with a pedigree.
Power is nothing without control.
Ken says he aims for power with elegance, like the Pirelli calendar in which American sprinter Carl Lewis stands poised to jump out of the stands in six-inch heels with the tagline: “Power is nothing without control.” Or a rugby player like Bakkies Botha executing a perfect pirouette. Our climatic conditions, like our sun that burns the Australian ear tags on his Waygu cattle (meant to last at least two years), to a crisp in half the time. And our wind, that he says Bruce Jack will tell you is the strongest in the world, and yet a necessity in controlling the effects of the sun. These conditions make for POWERFUL fruit, expressive, with the ability to pack an almighty punch if not tempered correctly. Ken uses old oak, second, third, and fourth fill to temper this power without diluting it, combining stainless steel fermented juice to produce his ideal of powerful elegance - winningly.
The Crusades
The next principle of his ideology is his need for a crusade or a purpose. You might know Ken as the Chenin King. And he is, having established the Chenin Association and taken South African Chenin global. He says it was a role that found him, like a sign out front proclaiming: “Vacancy.” SOMEONE had to hero Chenin, and I think in the midst of what he calls a mid-life crisis, on a farm with incredible old vine Chenin, in search of a CAUSE, Ken Forrester was just IT. He said he tasted a 1947 Chenin in France in 1993, and he just couldn’t believe its beauty, its unbelievable concentration, and thought: WE can do that. What he has created is Chenin at three different price points - starting with the Petit range, first created for the UK market, and the Oddbins deal that launched an empire. The incredible Old Vine Chenin in the middle, though one could argue that the quality far outweighs the price at this point. And then there’s the FMC - Fucking Marvellous Chenin - or Forrester Meinert Chenin. A collaboration between Chenin Scion Martin Meinert and Ken. Made from an incredible parcel of old vine Chenin on the property that has long been the flagship Chenin of ALL his Chenins, with Martin as his mentor in Chenin rather than the winemaker. “He stopped making my wine after about the first six or seven years because he was my mentor, not my winemaker. He was always his own winemaker. He was slightly horrified that people thought he was my winemaker.” And that’s what I like about Ken, he’s a collaborator, not a BOSS. He leads by example, and you can see that he likes shouldering a burden more than handing it over for someone else to carry.
A South African Blend
There are other Chenins, like the Terre Noire Chenin parcel he rescued from becoming a sand mine in the Swartland. But that’s part of another crusade - South Africa. Ken doesn’t like doing what everyone else does. He thinks our obsession with Bordeaux blends will never result in the next Petrus, or Château Haute Brion, and suggests we look to what constitutes a South African blend to contend with the top international wines of the world. In his search, he found Grenache in the Piekenierskloof, from a Tannie Marais, a widow who kept stokkies from the vines she pruned for other farmers in the area, and grafted them to grow vines and sell cuttings to make ends meet. Some of these cuttings she had tried to make stokkies out of to sell, but she left them too long, and they rooted themselves. She ended up planting them on a neighbour’s farm in 1959, and this vineyard became the cornerstone of the Gypsy, Ken’s flagship Grenache, Syrah blend. A South African Blend.
Renegade
It’s funny, Ken named his initial Grenache-Syrah blend (not made from Piekenierskloof grapes at the time, he hadn’t met the tannie yet) as one of his biggest failures. While HE knew that the quality was undisputed, the consumer just wasn’t ready for it. At the time, the South African market didn’t even KNOW what Grenache was, much less were willing to spend money on it. He subsequently named that blend the Renegade, disguising this phenomenal, proudly South African blend with a name representative of the spirit it was made in.
The Makings of a Famous Winemaker
Ken’s range of wines doesn’t end here. Making trailblazing Chenin and Rhône-style blends in the Cape, he also makes Cabernet in the Napa Valley and imports international wines to supplement his range, demonstrating his diverse interests. He also exports his wines to far-off places like Zanzibar and actively promotes them there. He makes it his business to not only understand the winemaking side of things, but the logistics and the SELLING of the wine. The Ken Forrester Range of wines constitutes three permanent ranges catering to three different price points, and thus three different audiences, while Ken continues to experiment with a variety of limited release ranges like the Misfits, the Swansong (the last Grenache from ou Tannie Marais’s vineyard), Sparkle Horse Cap Classique, more recently PetNat (did you know that the lees - dead yeast cells - are full of Vitamin B?), GIN, ag you name it he’s made it. With a young winemaker Shawn Mathyse who he’s taken on as an apprentice, Ken views Shawn's very youth as a challenge to experiment more, to give him as much experience as possible. “He told me he wanted to be a famous winemaker, and I said, that’s cool. We’ll make you a famous winemaker.”
Ken says he can get comfortable almost anywhere, and he has, having travelled extensively. He didn’t HAVE to make wine in South Africa, but he does. The pandemic offered him the opportunity to just stay home, and unlike the rest of us, he says: “It was the best time of my life.”