The Mentor

“Ek word al minder en die wyn word al meer.” / “I become less, and the wine becomes more.” - Ian Naudé.

Ian Naudé prefers animals to people. He always keeps up to five border collies and donates a percentage of his sales to Wineland Dogs. After all, you shouldn’t trust a winemaker without a dog. There’s a theory that the prowess of a winemaker can be deduced from the sheer NUMBER of dogs…I’ll be investigating this. His grandfather, Oupa Willem, whom he never met, was said to have shared this passion for animals, as well as his fiery temperament. While the wine then may only be a facet of his being, it is the tool he uses to contribute to SOUTH AFRICA, which given the state of us, demands excellence. His contributions are thoughtful, passionate, and HONEST like he says: “BLY IN JOU BAAN.” / “STAY IN YOUR LANE”. He “helps” out at Elsenburg, pulling in winemakers who have put us on the map to come to talk to the new generation. “CRAZY good,” he says of them. “SCARY good.” He cultivates relationships with everyone worth their salt and makes sure they get where they’re going for the greater good. He gets excited by weird and wonderful heritage varietals and makes incredible wines from them, allowing farmers to survive. Especially those who have been farming obscure varietals such as Colombard in Vredendal almost to the point of financial ruin. He works with people like Rosa Kruger and Andre Morgenthal finding old vines and sets about doing them JUSTICE. One of the most recent, his Rooigroendruif/ Semillon Gris from the 84-year-old La Colline vineyard in Franschhoek. Of which Greg Sherwood said: “Piercing, super focused…a very serious fine wine expression of majestic old vine Semillon.” Two of his white wines (2 of only 6 South African wines) ended up on the Decanter top white wines of 2020 list. He asks me incredulously: “I mean HOW does that happen?” 

I know how…

New World Chablis

Up until now, you’d be forgiven for not having heard of Naudé Wines. Ian doesn’t like the limelight, though a force within the industry, he is disinterested in the trappings of fame, and actively works to avoid it. Ian’s history in wine goes back a long way- he spent ten years as a cellar rat with the likes of Eben Sadie and Adi Badenhorst travelling the world. He says he got fired a lot, but that it taught him the fundamentals of winemaking. He then came back home and worked for big names such as Dornier and Adoro, making wine for someone else. Which is probably why this reincarnation of Ian’s wine is SO good. You see you can’t buy experience, and I think years of following someone else’s rules has made him so uniquely defiant, that he can’t do anything BUT make authentic wine. I think of him as having phases, like Picasso… he’s transcended his Blue period and reached something with a decidedly Rosey hue, and a touch of Surrealism. Ian’s current (and truest) journey with wine started with the old vine white blend. A notoriously difficult sell - but one that is slowly gaining traction in the nerdy wine circles of the world. He said he wanted to make Chablis, but a New World Chablis, that had nothing to do with Chardonnay and everything to do with being a light, lunchtime wine, with minerality, low alcohol, and uniquely South African. He made it from Chenin blanc, Semillon, and Sauvignon blanc, the three varietals that act as a foundation, not only to the wine but to his brand. The three intersecting circles of his logo speaking of their unique ability to blend and co-exist. He let me taste a 2006 vintage, which didn’t seem like anything older than a year or two, the flavours complex, restrained, and exceptionally elegant. I think that’s the thing about Ian’s wines - they’re ELEGANT, with the ability to age, made by a man who would rather see less of himself in them, and more of the terroir. The white blend can contain anything from 15 to 25 vineyards /terroir, something uniquely South African and unheard of in the old world. Imagine blending a Sancerre with some other French appellation - literally ILLEGAL. Ian's wines are HONEST South African expressions of terroir, without trying or even wanting to be anything else.

Die Sakkies

After six years of making the old vine white blend, his last vintage is the 2010, the difficulty of selling it (although now he wishes he had made a lot more given its growing audience), Ian started looking around for something else to inspire him. What he found was old vines and “Die Sakkies”. “Die Sakkies” refer to the group of young winemakers he now rubs shoulders with at Elsenburg, they learn from each other and are constantly going back and forth on wine styles, vineyards, and exposure. He says their goal is “Weightless Intensity”, referring to effortless site-specific wines. A characteristic of this group being that they don’t own land or come from family farms, but only wish to make the best South African wine to ensure our (and their) future here. Sakkie Mouton, the “head Sakkie”, is the maker of the cult wine ‘Revenge of the Crayfish’ and who Greg Sherwood deems one of the most exciting winemakers to come from South Africa since Eben Sadie. “If quality like this can be repeated, future greatness and fame seem very close within reach for young Sakkie.” Greg writes of the maiden 2018 vintage. And no, the wine is sold out… for now. Sakkie comes from Koekenaap, a small town in the West Coast, Ian says he always thought it was just a figure of speech up until he met Sakkie, not an actual place. It was Sakkie who led Ian to the Colombard vineyard in Vredendal from which he makes his ‘Langpad’/‘Long Road’, Decanter top wine of 2020, Colombard. Ian says he thinks of his wines as people, and this one is an old French oomie, in a dirty vest, playing boules in the afternoon and retiring to his Château at night. A wine with BACKGROUND. The Oupa Willem, in honour of his Namibian grandfather, is a heritage blend of old vine Cinsault discovered by Rosa, and Cabernet Sauvignon. A true South African blend and I don’t mind telling you, one of my favourites. The Rooigroendruif Semillon from La Colline was made in honour of Oom Tobie Langarm, the Oom who toiled his whole life with one arm to cultivate and nurture this vineyard for his children and grandchildren. Ian even had a wedding photographer from Kimberley, with a unique flair for poetry (who he tracked down having read some of his work), write him a poem - because like Ian says, an 84-year-old vine has a STORY.

Kanniedood

Of ratings, Ian is vehemently opposed to people who do things for their own gain. His philosophy is that if you do what you’re uniquely suited to, be it making wine, cultivating vineyards, consulting, or writing - you should do so without a thought of self, but rather in pursuit of doing justice to your craft and for the greater good. As such he encouraged Sakkie to donate a percentage of his sales to protect the West Coast crayfish that are so ruthlessly poached- as a way of giving back. Everything Ian does seems to be interconnected, one thing feeding the other, no gaps, no dead-ends. Ian had open-heart surgery in late November 2020, and when I met him early in 2021, I was convinced he got the dates wrong, someone so ALIVE, and active couldn’t have been bed-ridden and deathly ill just a few months prior. That kanniedood spirit came THROUGH. By conventional standards people might say Ian is quite old to be reinventing himself, but I think that’s what brings this FIRE to his wine and his interactions with almost everybody - he says it’s a survival instinct, and that he didn’t have a choice, but to move forward. His energy is infectious, and his understanding of the social network surrounding the South African wine industry, its politics, and key players - a national treasure. He has taken it upon himself to feed international wine writers with South African content - from the proverbial horse’s mouth, rather than waiting around for someone else to package the story. And to be honest - who better to tell it?

At the end of the day, it’s all very simple. He says he belongs here, it’s where he’s happiest, and where he can make a difference. And he has.