The Different Shapes & Sizes of Kara-Tara Wines
Rüdger van Wyk looks like a rugby player, which he was back in the day.
Rugby is a central theme in the South African wine industry, especially in Stellenbosch. Oom Jan Boland himself was a Springbok and said it was the IDEAL of being a Springbok that drove him on. The discipline, the camaraderie, the pride, all values put to good use in LIFE, never mind rugby (though we love the rugby). Rüdger van Wyk was introduced to wine while visiting his brother, who was already working in wine, playing rugby tours in the Cape Winelands during high school. He jokes that he got into wine just to mess with his mother, who doesn’t drink, though his passion and subsequent successes belie this argument.
A Steely Resolve
Rüdger is a gemoedelike (congenial) man, though I think his easy-going nature disguises a steely resolve. This is a man from George, a first-generation winemaker from humble beginnings, who saw something he wanted and grabbed hold of every opportunity to make it so. Having completed a 4-year degree at the University of Stellenbosch, Rüdger joined the Cape Winemakers Guild Protégé Program. A program that offers a few promising interns the opportunity to work with and learn from 48 (at last count) of South Africa’s most celebrated winemakers for a three-year period. Here Rüdger worked under people like: Abrie Beeslaar of Kanonkop, Charles Hopkins of De Grendel, Pieter Ferreira of Graham Beck, Beyers Truter of Beyerskloof, Bernhard Veller of Ntida, and even had the opportunity to work a harvest in Burgundy at Domaine Jacob, which is where he discovered his love of Pinot and Chardonnay.
Sucking the Marrow
The effect these ooms en tannies, their network, and shared knowledge have had on Rüdger’s subsequent career is undisputed. Though, it has to be said, not without its challenges. Now I don’t know if you KNOW, but these great men and women are quite intimidating. They don’t MEAN to be, the very existence of the Protégé Program is proof of that. But if you want to GAIN something from your interactions with them, you have to come to the party. You have to KNOW what you want, you have to take it in, you have to UNDERSTAND the opportunity, and you need to suck the marrow out of it. Which I think is what Rüdger understood from the outset.
Job Security Goals
After two years in the Protégé Program, Rüdger’s hands were itching to start work, and he started looking around. His big break came quickly and unexpectedly like things meant for you tend to do. He had happened across an opening for a job at Stark-Condé under José Condé, who, a week before Rüdger was scheduled to leave for Burgundy, told him to learn as much as he could and come back to work for him when he got back to South Africa. The prospect of which, for an intern still only two-thirds through his course, about to leave for the harvest of a lifetime, must have been thrilling. The security of a job on his return. {I must be getting old if the idea of security is such a turn-on.}
The Thing that was both Success and Challenge
Rüdger started his career at Stark-Condé in 2015 and was awarded the Diner’s Club Young Winemaker in 2018, a secret goal since his student days. {I have a much more if God wills it approach to life, thus always in awe of people with such lofty goals who end up attaining them. Possibly something to consider going forward.} He was the first person of colour to win it and received the news on his honeymoon in the Knysna Heads - 2018 was a good year. As is my line of questioning, when I asked him what his biggest successes and challenges were, this win interestingly represents both. “Being the first of something, that’s a challenge. Breaking through in the wine industry, sitting in class as a student, next to students that are sixth, fifth-generation farmers, already knowing they’re going back to their father’s farms or their father’s friends. That was a massive challenge.” This is where the Cape Winemakers Guild came in, fulfilling an almost familial role in fitting in.
Different Shapes & Sizes
Kara-Tara is a town on the Cape South Coast near George, where Rüdger grew up. A Khoisan name and a nod to his heritage, meaning deep, dark shadows, about an iron-rich river that runs through town, making it difficult to see through to fish. The Kara-Tara brand marries the diversity of South Africa with two of the noblest cultivars and their heritage to break down the walls. Like Rüdger says: “Just working hard going into the streets, the streets that no-one else wants to go into and pave the way, tell the story, invite people into your home, let them drink more wine.” The idea is to break down the perception that you need to have money to drink wine and focus on the virtues of the juice, its origins, the winemaking, and the ethos of the man at the helm. By this reasoning, there is a local audience yet undiscovered. Rüdger explains the wine label, the different shapes, colours, and sizes used to spell out the name in reference to the different shapes and sizes of South Africa. How different we all are, and yet, how utterly the same.
Enjoy it While it Lasts
Some day, I have to experience one of these harvest lunches in France winemakers keep telling me about. 10 am baguettes, LIVING cheeses, insane wines, still exhausted from sunrise picking, pump-overs, and the innumerable activities of harvest. “It’s a lifestyle over there.” A phrase I’ve heard in more than one incarnation from different parties, though the effect remains the same. A sense of euphoria surrounds harvests in France. I imagine them tinged with the sepia tones of an old photograph, something you treasure forever. Remembering that LIFE exists outside a computer screen, and you might just as well ENJOY it while it lasts. Thus not a great stretch that Rüdger should fall in love with Burgundy’s two flagship grapes and bring them home. Kara-Tara only started making Pinot Noir in 2017, selling most of it in America that first year, and only because Stark-Condé had finally settled on making Estate Wines exclusively. {Up until then, they had been buying in Pinot under the Stark-Condé label.}
Just Right
Today Kara-Tara produces Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from three relatively cool climate sites in Durbanville, Overberg, and Elgin. The 2020 vintage also heralds the first Pinot Noir Reserve from a unique site in the Overberg, with only 700 bottles produced. The overarching style of the wine is one of refreshment, the Chardonnay settling, like Goldilocks, with a touch of oak, a dab of minerality, and a dash of acid, between the old and the new, Chablis, and old school Cape, just right. In Rüdger’s almighty plight to break down the barriers, he’s created the wines to do so. Getting to live out his Burgundian, barrier-breaking aspirations with the Kara-Tara wines and paying homage to Bordeaux (and Stellenbosch) in the stellar Stark-Condé wines produced with Jose Condé.
To give better than my father did…
There have been many mentors in Rüdger’s career, but none more so than his father, Rodney. “You know, I think my father was my biggest hero.” A geography teacher, with an inherent love of the soil, and his family. Rüdger now looks, like us all, to create generational wealth for his son Chad. Be it money, experience, or lifestyle. “To give better than what my father gave, though that’s going to be very hard.” I think that’s the point of having a good father or people who have helped you up in life, to give back harder and better, in celebration of them.
Long May it Last
Of South Africa, he says: “I love South Africa. I love our diversity. I think, although we have challenges, there's so much opportunity still awaiting us. I still think there are so many things that can happen with a lot of young guns that come through the system. And the world is only starting to talk about us now.” And people like YOU, Rüdger.
Like he says: "Long may it last."