The Nature of Erika

If I say Granadilla. Can you taste it?

Can you taste the green tropical flavour of the skin of an unripe granadilla versus the super sweetness of ripe granadilla pulp? Erika can. Her sense of taste and memory of it remains a superpower to me. Built over a lifetime of inquisitive tasting and filed away in a mind uniquely suited to putting that information to WORK. If you think about it, taste is a funny thing, it’s such a natural thing and yet something you’re constantly adding to and building on. How can you recognize something you don’t know? How will you know the taste of an unripe fig, if you’ve only ever eaten ripe figs? Or a blackberry in season? Erika inspired me to eat OUTSIDE my creature of habit spectrum, to buy fruits I don’t know or assume I don’t like, just to KNOW them in my almighty quest to LEARN. But Erika is like that. Inspiring.. 

As the Crow Flies

Erika lost her sight almost completely at the same time she lost her job at Graham Beck after 10 years, and promptly started her own brand while getting two cornea transplants with a recovery period of over 4 years, AND was named Platter’s Newcomer of the Year with her maiden vintages. While explaining vineyards she used a phrase that has always tickled me: ‘As the crow flies…’ It means ‘straight’, taking no detours or turns but flying direct to your destination. And I think that’s what Erika did, she just went for it, as the crow flies. “It’s very important to take fear out of your mind. Fear is the killer of success and creativity.” Thus, it is no great stretch that the pandemic and all its inherent struggles didn’t seem to phase her one bit.

Graham Beck

Erika comes from a sheep farm in the Karoo. She was going to be a medical doctor when she arrived at Stellenbosch but soon found that, THAT wasn’t the medicine she wanted to prescribe. She started work at Vredendal winery, then Kleine Zalze as assistant winemaker, and finally, Charles Hopkins of Graham Beck (at the time) approached her to become the white winemaker under him in 2005. After 9 months she was promoted to winemaker and relished her role making still wines at Graham Beck Franschhoek for the next 10 years. When Graham Beck decided to focus on bubbles exclusively in 2015, Erika found herself without a job and at the beginning of her struggles with her sight. Given all the challenges, however, Erika started her own wine brand in 2016, Erika Obermeyer wines. Creating something uniquely personal after a seeming lifetime in a corporate winemaking environment. The experience of which has proven invaluable as evidenced by the wine. 

'n Kaapse Draai

Erika is a joyful presence, bubbling over with excitement and anecdotes when we meet her one early morning by the side of the road opposite 96 Winery Road. She’s five minutes late because she stopped to get Kleinjan, Michael, and me energy bars for the day ahead. We were set to do what you call ’n Kaapse draai (A Cape Turn) around the Cape Winelands, visiting some of the vineyards that produce her range of regional, varietal-specific wines. Erika’s career at Graham Beck afforded her many valuable relationships within the industry as well as an insider's knowledge of who farms what and where she might get the best grapes to represent HER classic style of winemaking. It is her total immersion in the South African wine industry that has allowed her to cultivate valuable relationships with farmers who in the past would have sold off their grapes to disappear into someone else’s blend. Erika offers these farmers the opportunity to see their terroir, singularly reflected in her award-winning wines, validation for the time and effort they spent farming it.  

Regionality

When I say Kaapse Draai, I mean KAAPSE DRAAI. Erika makes Cabernet Sauvignon in Stellenbosch and Firgrove, Stellenbosch (or lower Helderberg); Syrah from Paardeberg and Firgrove, Stellenbosch; Chenin blanc (being added to her range in 2022) and Cinsault from Agter Paarl (recently designated as a separate appellation); Grenache from Wellington; and Sauvignon blanc from Groenekloof in Darling. Her specific focus on these key regions and varietals made me think about the progress and nature of South African FINE wine. Agter Paarl in the past would have just fallen under Paarl as wine of origin, but as we’ve grown and understood the nuances of the terroir, the soil, the aspect, the climate - the more we learn, the more we realise how DIVERSE previous designations really are. The more SPECIFIC we can be in the making of our wines, pairing varietals up with the right soils, aspect, and climate - the more FINE wine we make. As our wine regions become more defined, and appellation lines are drawn, we’re seeing a coming of age of South African wine as a whole. With people like Erika leading the charge. 

A Woman Winemaker

When I ask her how the South African wine industry has evolved since she started, I was thinking more along the lines of wine tourism, regionality, collaboratives, SA wine abroad - but she brought me back, saying that when she started in 1999 there weren’t that many female winemakers about. We forget how far we’ve come. As a woman, Erika first had to become CONFIDENT in her winemaking. Her experience at Graham Beck, the family, and Charles Hopkins’s support of her winemaking seems to have been the time she NEEDED to become confident enough to stand on her own. “At Graham Beck -I remember thinking, Charles was very comfortable with me in the cellar and making the wine. Within a year, that whole fighting for your little spot became irrelevant. I got my wings to fly.” 

Classic not Cool

What I found interesting about Erika is that unlike her contemporaries who do not own vineyards and rent cellar space (this year she finally acquired permanent cellar space), she’s not a young gun. Let me define the term, or at least how I mean it: A Young Gun is a young, independent winemaker/surfer who buys grapes from several farmers, rents cellar space and year on year makes intriguing, COOL wines, using either ancient (See NATURAL) or modern techniques. Their ranges are ever-changing and their winemaking is marked by an adventurous quality. It is THEIR personalities that have so endeared us to the international market and we LOVE the flair and innovation they add to brand SA. But Erika isn’t COOL… she’s CLASSIC. Her wines are timeless and while her winemaking might retain some of the characteristics of a young gun winemaker, they represent her classical upbringing in wine. She benefits from free consultations with farmers who also work with bigger corporations. She’s made wine to suit the needs of an excel spreadsheet in the past KNOWING the fundamentals but has made it her own. No trends, no gimmicks, just wine in its purest form. 

The Nature of ...

I think that comes back to her love of nature. When she was little on the farm she’d disappear for hours. “It was a very simple life, I had nature as my best friend. Often only coming home for dinner - I’ve learned a certain language from nature from a very early age.” And it shows. Erika is more intuitive than scientific in her approach - I mean she KNOWS the scientific principles of winemaking and effectively employed it in her previous life, but now she just FEELS it. “Just by standing here, you can see this vineyard is super happy - there’s no stress.” Her periodic loss of sight also seems to have contributed to her incredible sensory memory, flavour profiles are ‘filed away’, as well as how vineyards react to certain stimuli. She spends most of her time in the vineyards, traversing the Cape in pursuit of FLAVOUR and a love of the land - and I found her passion infectious. 

At the end of the day, Erika IS our South African kanniedood spirit. When faced with the uncertainty of lockdown and alcohol bans she says: “ I got to a point and I just started to blend the wines - but I’m not going to give up. I’ve worked so hard, I cannot give up. Just do everything as good as you can. When this all is over, you at least will be in a position to pick up and carry on.” See- KANNIEDOOD. 

“NATURE is the one thing that keeps on giving, now more than ever Nature is bringing the stability back to our lives, there’s a certainty to Harvest. Just embrace the clear skies, and mountains around you and be grateful.” And THAT is the nature of Erika Obermeyer wines.