Interview With Ken Forrester – The Stellenbosch Wine Supremo.

A few weeks ago, Ken Forrester, the multi-award winning winemaker, left his 40-hectare vineyard in Stellenbosch inside the Western Cape Province of South Africa, to share his passion for wine at the Hyatt in Dar es Salaam. Swahili Coast Foodie caught up with him at a wonderful evening of fine food and super wine to find out more about ‘The King of Chenin Blanc’:

1. What makes Stellenbosch unique for winegrowing?

South Africa is a varied canvas, not just one region, it is made up of many climatic and topographical regions. In the maritime region of Stellenbosch within 7km of the cold Atlantic Ocean, our grapes do very well in a strictly Mediterranean-type climate of long dry summers and cold, mild wet winters.

2. What is your approach for making great wine?

It’s so common to hear people say that great wines are made in the vineyard and it is completely true! The vineyard determines the quality of the fruit, the power of the concentration, the ripening ability and the depth of flavour. My job is to provide the best opportunity for fruit to grow and ripen as evenly as possible. Simply put this is the theory – each vine needs to carry 6 evenly spaced shoots, on each side, each shoot with one bunch and 17 leaves. All six bunches on the left cordon of the trellised vine must ripen at the same time as the six bunches on the right cordon. Then all 4000 vines per hectare must all ripen their 12 bunches at the same time on the same day

3. What is your most exciting grape variety? Why?

How to produce quality Chenin Blanc is a never ending quest, it’s simple and yet incredibly complicated. Chenin requires a certain selective cool climate. It is impossible, however, to make great Chenin without sufficient sunshine, it is absolutely essential. Thereafter, the choice of rootstocks, propagation techniques, pruning methods, trellising options, canopy management, bunch thinning, irrigation, all of these factors are crucial to quality and we never stop experimenting.

4. What wines are you known for? Any recent awards?

Our flagship wines are special vineyard selections from specific old parcels of vines. The FMC is primarily from a vineyard planted in 1970, with no trellis system, goblet or bush vines. It produces very limited yields and by passing through the vineyard to make 5 selections of fruit across a 4/5 week window we truly capture the essence of this fantastic site. The wine is all fermented with native yeasts, spontaneously in large 400 litre French oak barrels and aged for 14/15 months before careful selection of the best barrels and assemblage.

5. From the wines you have made, what is your favourite? Why?

The Gypsy. It is primarily from a very beautiful, unique Grenache Noir vineyard, planted on its own roots, with no graft, in 1959. A single vineyard of 5 hectares planted on a 300 ha property with no adjoining vineyards. Here the wild antelope eat the outer fringes of the vine leaves, baboons eat the ripening fruit. It is a very remote site on a flat mountain plain 3 hours north of Cape Town in the Tierkloof region. This fruit is harvested and brought back to Stellenbosch for crushing and fermentation and then matured in old French barrels for a year. The blend is then made and it goes back into barrels to marry for another year after which the barrels are selected for the final assemblage.

6. What would you hope people say about your wine?

For me wine must be interesting, fun, enchanting, depending on the occasion. It must also always show clean, pure, ripe fruit and have an elegance. Balance is of the utmost importance and the mouth feel plays a critical role, wine should always taste like the next sip!

7. What have you learnt about Dar wine lovers from previous events at The Hyatt?

Dar wine lovers are just like wine lovers all over the world! They love the better things in life and the FMC and Gypsy are always a huge hit. But there is a time when wine needs to be a beverage. When you get home from work and you’ve had a tough day what you need is a glass of wine! The entire Petit Range is designed for easy, ‘early’ drinking. Fresh, young wines that are ideal for everyday imbibing with friends and meals. Delightful. In fact I strongly recommend you keep three bottles cold and three bottles spare at all times!