Withoek - Calitzdorp

Death of Monster

2011-11-26T03:43:00.000-08:00

As most of you that might be traveling past Calitzdorp know, the apricots is a bit late this year. About nearly 6 to 8 days. Which is surpising is the earlier cultivars was on time. The waite won't go without any benefit. The sizes looks promising. I would guess they would be about 20% larger than usual. Not a bumper of a harvest but with bigger sizes it certainly will make up for the less fruit. Quality also very good and it seems to have a lot of substance. I did fertilize with a lot of potasium which enhance size and quality but the rest of the Calitzdorp farmers observe the same - so maybe just a 2011 thing.

This week a Rhodesian Ridgeback called Monster passed away. Every body knew the late Monster. Especially us that visited 'The naked Lady' for a breakfast or just a drink. Now Monster was to put it mildly a straying dog. Had probably as many masters as meals. Well known in town where he went to visit everyone and the neighbour. Hope you have enough space up there Monster.

The weather in Calitzdorp is also playing games with really cool nights and very mild days. Seems like spring is going to continue forever. In combination with the extreme dry conditions with not a lot of rain coming down we really have excellent fruiting weather. The fruit all seems healthy and the vineyards are all in excellent condition. The yields of the apricots look average while the plums are at a alltime low. Only 3 tonnes a hectare. Not at all viable. The vineyards looks excellent with a good harvest hanging. If the weather plays with this might end up being a great season.

As most of you heard the Port Festival is happening this next year. I think most of us is very excited about this new developement. The Festival has really made a turn for the good with more emphasis on lifestyle. This is really a story about less is more.

Well I have to leave to go and have a look at those apricots ripening.

Cycles of life

2011-09-29T05:03:00.000-07:00

It has really being a long time since the last post. I don't really have an excuse but if I have to make an attempt just walk pass the new orchards and vineyards planted.

All is in the soil and the first buds already showing. The new plants are really looking healthy and very happy in their new enviroment. Our new irrigation system out of the VanDerMerwe dam is working well.

The new harvest for apricots really looks promising with the orchards which didn't produce any fruit last year trying to make up for it. Lots of fruit on the dried apricots cultivars and the Bullida orchard maybe less fruit but nothing to complain about. We will be hammering them with fertilizers the next three weeks to enhance size and quality to make this a succesful season.

The peaches a lot less fruit than the promising flowering period. Not a bad thing because you have to thin peaches. This means nice big peaches. The people that know tell me that you don't always loose that much yield if you thin effective and early. We will be finishing the thining process this week. The rule of thumb for the guys with peach trees in the garden is a peach every 15cm with not more than 4 peaches per cane.

We also started our spraying with mostly attention keeping down the primary population of fungi and insects. For those in town you can really help your local friendly farmers by also supporting it by spraying the necessary Mercaptithion with sugar mix. Buy it at the local AgriVillage or just putting out a mixture of Petrol, Diesel and water. Put this in a plastic holder with a hole in. The fruit flies are attracted to the smell of the mixture and will drown in it. But it out under all those citrus, peach and apricot trees in your garden and remember to refill it once every two weeks.

It really is funny thinking it is 5 weeks and we will be harvesting our first apricots and plums. The year that just passed really flew by.

I must also comment on the beautiful veld. The Calitzdorp succulent plants really contributed to a very nice introduction into the new season. Our veld is really thankful.

I will try and keep you up to date with the growth and ripening of the fruit this summer.

Micro Ice Age

2011-07-26T01:40:00.000-07:00

Just as we thought or rather say I and my peach trees thought summer was on its way the winter extends its visit. Yes my peach trees is just about to flower and the colder weather should not have any effect. Peaches are more resistant to frost and cold. More so than the apricots and vines.
The Little Karoo and especially Calitzdorp really keeps you humble. A year ago we didn't know when the water is going to come. Now our dam is overflowing since 17 June and we don't know what to do with the water. For the not so agricultural involved the water is harmless at this stage. More structural damage because of erosion. So we enjoy this with everybody. We allready had three overflow 'beurte' and here at Withoek we flood irrigated all possible lands we could. We even sewn some lucern and oats. We don't have any livestock to speak of but at least we will some for if we want some.
With our new plantings planning it goes well. All the irrigation is in where we could put it in so far. Just two blocks remain. One of the blocks next to the Groenfontein road we have to put in drainage. It seems like one of my own dams are leaking. First things first is to secure at least about a 1,2m of dry soil for the new plantings. We are doing this by doing a cut off drain pipe on the northern side. With the drain pipe we put in old building rubble with a cover of plastic. The plastic will see to it that the soil does not stop the drain pipes holes. The system will the function for a longer period and the rubble will actually enhance the effecitvity of the drain system.
You can also see in the middle of the new plantings a drainage. This is for the water that slip by or enter the land from the eastern side. THis water will be relayed to the river via a channel which is running west.
We also started with pruning last week. With Calitzdorp's unreliable weather we want to avoid the late frost and by pruning late we sort of limit the period the vines will or can be exposed to frost. Further by pruning later the new eyes/ buds on the shoots bearing the fruit for next year will be exposed to more sunlight and thus be more fertile.
Well they will be tasting the Platter wines tomorrow in Barrydale. And Withoek will be there. I am also lucky to be asked again to taste on the National Young Wine Show's panel for Port. This will be also happening tomorrow. You must keep you fingers crossed for a nice cold day in Paarl.
Wines I have tasted recently is my own Shiraz 2009. Really drinking well. The alcohol has integrated well with the wine. Had a dinner at Alex Fick. He makes marvelous curries. It tasted nearly sweet from the fruit with the curry. A real winner. The curry that is. Ya and the Shiraz. My Cabernet was bottled and is being tasted at the Wine Board this week. Labels was ordered and it will be releases soon. A young fruitful wine with lower alcohol level. Typical Cab it needs time.
Axehill also released a red blend which is really excellent. Don't expect anything ordinary. This is wine made of port cultivars and the spices combinates excellent with the fruit. A really beauty. Machado is the name I think. THis wine now joins III from Peter Bayly as one of the 'Calitzdorp' blend wines. Wines made from Port Cultivars. BOth of them is highly recommended.
So take out a port or Calitzdorp blend and enjoy the last bit of the winter or so I think.

Post Port

2011-07-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

After the Festival I really start enjoying what is great living in this Capital of ours. The quiet sunny days - sometimes a bit misty - and cold evenings. A glass of red wine and the more daring Port to end it off with. Sounds bad - probably have to call the AA but please waite till the end of the winter.
The feedback on the festival has been good and it seems that we are going to make an annual event of this. I think the town really needs it and it is good to showcase what we have to offer once a year.
This last week also seen a little newspaper: Calitzdorp Focus hit the streets. Very informative and well planned. Something to read for everyone in the community as well as visitors who wants to get to know our little village a bit better. Look out for an article on Port in the next issue.

On Withoek the big bulldozer is doing its bit to really break the soils deep. We want to break the soil as deep as possible. By doing this we create a bigger tank and volume of soil which can be used by the plant to gather the necessary nutrients and water. The deeper the better. We are also busy putting up the trellis systems for vineyards planted last year. This goes on well and we should be finished by the end of this week.
With the Calitzdorp Dam overflowing the farmers all got some extra water. With this all the storage water stored behind the dam wall is lost and the farmers must each use as much as they can. At Withoek we flood irrigated some of our outside vineyards and orchards. Mostly to wash out some of the salts building up because of the drip and micro irrigation. We also help the soils to become moist and so the water will be there when the soil temperatures rise again and the early root growth burst happens. This will help with the adsorption of minerals and nutrients for the plant and leads to better growth and hopefully and excellent harvest.
We also will be bottling our Cabernet Sauvignon next week. It is very fruity style with not high alcohol 13%. Again in the softer style typical of Withoek. So keep your eyes peeled for the first ones.

What a Festival

2011-06-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

The Port festival of 2011 was a huge success. Thanks to all participating cellars and an organizer like Nita Bailey and the Husband of the Year and sort of headmaster of the festival Tony Bailey. Thanks to both of them for hours and hours of phoning, printing, talking and driving this ended up being one of the most successful festivals and also the best organized.

As most of you know by now nearly all the little food shows - Cheese and Port, Chocolate and Port, Francois Ferreira Bollywood version of South African cuisine, Mysteries of Port, etc. - were sold out. And everybody enjoyed each of these encounters with the food and port pairings. Thanks here to presenters and all the staff envolved with these little 'productions'.

Withoek did really well. Our wines were not sold out so please do still support us but we did a lot of marketing and new faces were introduced to our little cellar. Thanks for those that helped us.

The idea of the port at the different restaurants also helped a lot. I think it really created a sort of town festival feeling.

Thank you also to all the visitors which took the time to come to the festival and enjoy our lovely local drink. There was a great atmosphere around the festival grounds and good quality people enjoying themselves without any overcrowding.

Now the greatest mystery of all: WHEN IS THE NEXT FESTIVAL? Keep your eyes on this space.

Thanks again to the whole community contributing to the successful festival.

The Festival kicks off!!

2011-06-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

It finally arrives. Before anything I want to thank my good neighbour Nita and Tony Bailey for an excellent festival. I can predict that with more certainty than the weather of this little town of ours. It just started to drip again. I am not complaining because nature really played a big role in making this festival a success. The veld is just green with new growth and looks lifely again. The dam will overflow in this weekend after last weeks good rain. (by the way Withoek measured 65mm).
This afternoon I attended the lunch which was part of the ABSA sponsorship for this festival. It really was an eye opener with lots of info. The short and sweet of the story is: Invest in Agriculture - it is the golden era for agriculture world wide. Aparently our net income is 41bn rand the last year. A big amount. I haven't pocket in but think the wheel must turn. The sad news is that the rand will get stronger and it will end at about R6,30 at the end of the year. It will aparently never go over R7,00 again. VIVA MALEMA. I must try and help it if I can.

Withoek spend some time on the cosmetics this winter. We painted the old 'waenhuis', tasting room. You must come and have a look. The interior also got a bit of a lift. Our new port: The Geyser Vintage 2010 will soon be on the market. It will be sold in the smaller version 375ml bottle and is a great gift. It will be sold for R40 a bottle.

Well Chrissie will be enjoying the Cheese, Chocolate and Bollywood shows tomorrow. I will be presenting the Mystery of Port also tomorrow. On the three days we will run a blindtasting competition which will be free and you can win an Calitzdorp port and wine hamper. So do come and try and be a expert. Also will be on show some of the great Port from outside our area. Some of the members of the SA Port Producers association.

See you at the station

Winter arrives!!

2011-06-07T01:43:00.000-07:00

The colder weather really hit us this week with temperatures dropping. This is excellent for the trees and vineyards. The buds need enough cold units to go through their rest period and be ready to bud for the next season. To work it out the rule of thumb is usually the average of the days temperature (Min add Max divide by two) to be under 9 degrees Celsius. This must continue for 5 or more consecutive days. If it does not happen we will see uneven budding in Spring and this leads usually to uneven ripening of the fruit and thus lesser quality and difficult season.
The other excellent thing about the cold and more precise the frost. It helps to keep down the insect numbers. Some of the insects die and or the eggs not being protected does not hatch. Leading to a lesser concentration of insects.
I also want to encourage neighbours to any farmer with a few nice fruit trees in their town garden to try and spray for fruit flies this winter. The population of fruit flies in the Calitzdorp region was exceptionally high. The flies usually goes to hide in trees with leaves and other hide outs in the winter because of the lack of protection in the cultivated orchards. Their is a lot of different products that can be used and the best is to get the advice of the nearest Landmark.
Well at Withoek we are not going to have an auction. We are just cleaning up our act a bit. Oom Apie is buys repairing the tractors one by one and it seem to go well. In the process we also spray them so that they also feels a bit better.
The tasting room also got a new coat of paint to be ready for the Port festival and we are looking ahead to another successful one. Thanks to Nita and Tony in particular for their hard work and dedication to this local festival. We are hoping that the success of this one might lead to it being held annually again. I thing the direction of lifestyle with a lot of emphasis on food type of entertainment.

WINTER ARRIVES!

2011-05-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

This year sort of was a very good example of when our summer changes into autumn and then winter. It seems to me the weather changed around the beginning of April with temperatures dropping to high twenties and lows into the high to mid tens. With May arriving the temperatures sort of - with the help of wetter weather dropped into the low to mid twenties and the minimum temperatures low teens.
Out of the farmers perspective it means that the soil temperatures also drop accordingly and the plants will go into rest. The roots stop its growth burst which usually happens in early autumn but with our sometimes high temperatures in autumn and early winter this growth phase can go on very much longer. You sometimes see especially peach and apricot trees having a big new growth spur which is an indication of this happening.
I happen also to notice some of the younger peach trees having some blossoms. Totally the wrong time and usaully an indication of the weather patterns. I find that the young peach trees are not always sure when to bloom and not. The older the get the fall into pattern and go into rest and come out of it at the right time. Something like children.
As most of you see we are busy taking out apricot and vineyards. We are now busy putting in the first of the irrigation extensions. We are busy repacing the flood irrigation system at Herminashof with a micro irrigation. Also making ready to plant some apricots in the Muscadel and Sultana's place.
Withoek will also be bottling their 2010 Withoek Vintage and 2010 Ficks Ruby Port - sorry EU Cape - next week and if we rush it it might be ready for the upcoming Port Festival. The system of getting a wine approved is actually a long process and a lot depends on the Department of Agriculture for chemical analysis where they determine your alcohol levels which you may put on the label. Further it has to go through a tasting panel deciding if the product is what you say it is. In this case a Vintage and Ruby Port.
To finish it off you can only print the labels when you know the precise alcohol levels. So hold your thumbs for the 16th of June for tasting the new Vintage and Ruby ports.

Warm, Cooler, Port

2011-05-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

The temperatures are slowly falling and you want to have something to warm you up in the cold evenings. Have a port. And while you at it support the local guys. Withoek released this week its' 2009 Cape Ruby. Yes we may not use that 'P' word anymore. It is and will stay in the future just a plain old Cape. Withoek uses the vintage indication for the Port even though you are not suppose to use it. For us it is an indication of a certain batch of this style of Cape.
We are selling it in a 375ml package under the Geyser label and a 750ml under the Withoek one. It is a more traditional style of Port with typical spices with a good balance between the sugar and alcohol. A real must for this colder weather.
In the next three weeks we also going to bottle the Fick's Ruby and a vintage port from the Kairos range. Both promise to warm the heart and body in this suppose to be colder winter.
With taking out of orchards and vineyards it is going well. We still have about three ha to take out and then the finally preparations will start.
Withoek is also selling the wood from the vineyards so do contact if you are interested in a nice braai with vines.

Change of season

2011-04-18T01:43:00.000-07:00

With the night temperatures dropping and the days becoming the usual autumn bright sunshine days Withoek is starting to prepare for the new blocks to be planted.
As usual we will have as part of our job creation the seasonal workers to cut down vineyards and orchards and the wood sold in the local market. So do come we still have some very dry wood from last year and some newer ones from this year.
Withoek is busy taking out some vineyards at Herminashof and replacing it with Apricot cultivars Soldonne and Bebeco. Both the apricot cultivars is drying cultivars. With this we will have more drying options and higher volumes.
At the Besemkop farm we are planting the Apriums - Apricot and plum hybrid - which is for the fresh market but actually developed for the dried fruit markets. On the eastern side of the road we will be planting some Chenin blanc.
The table grape block next to the Calitzdorp Country Lodge will be replaced by an extension of the Chenin block that was planted there last year. This making the block over 2 ha. On the Wesoewer side of the the same farm we are taking out some old Apricot - Bullida - orchard and Hanepoot vineyard and putting in African Rose an new plum cultivar suppose to be very early. This is quite a new variety and only available the last two years commercially.
For those who sometimes wander passed Jakkalskop will notice we are also taking out another vineyard which was an old experimental block with a white variety, Souzao and Peach trees on it. This will be replaced with Chenin blanc block. We will also develope a 2 ha block of Chenin blanc next to our red vineyard blocks.
The total replanting and replacing project will be 7 ha of which two is total new plantings.
As if we don't keep ourselves busy enough we will also have 2ha of flood irrigation being replaced by micro irrigation and a Peach orchard's drip irrigation getting the second line.
Withoek will be closed over the week with all the holidays. I am available if you want to buy any wines so do contact if necceasary.
Maybe a bit of promotion for a new establishment in Calitzdorp. Erica and Hans Calitz of the Donkey Trail opened a restaurant, Aloe Aloe, in Groenfontein on their property. They serve a Sunday afternoon spread which really is excellent. Do make reservations though. It really is worht while with one of the most beautiful Karoo drives.

Herminashof Cottage

2011-03-11T00:07:00.000-08:00

In small villages like our own things do take time. Nothing happens like overnight. It is sometimes makes you love this place and also can lead to some frustration.

Our cottage renovation took more than a year and is now ready for old and new friends to enjoy. With older buildings the facelift takes longer and usually there is some surprises underleath the layers of cement. You might also find that some small problems can easily esculate into something major.

The cottage can sleep 4 and does have an bathroom which is shared. Bath and shower. Small self catering kitchen with microwave, frigerator and small stove. A must is the small braai area and wood will be provided. Less than 300 m from the centre of the town and still on a farm. Something everybody will like.

Do come and enjoy the Calitzdorp scenery with coffee at Handelshuis. Lunch at The Red Coffee Pot and dinner at Lorenzo's. Or order in pizza from the Pizza Place. Have a farmers night out at Bosvarkie or a quiet night / day in with a good book.

As I said nothing happens overnight and that is why you might as well stay the weekend and something might happen.

On the farm we are busy cleaning up like that great song of the rock group Barney states 'Clean up'. It will probably take a few weeks and we still have to take out some of the vineyards / orchards for the new plantings. Also finishing off the last years vineyards with the necessary anchors to keep the cordons in position.

The renovation of the old tasting room is also coming along and I must say not many buildings beats the view on Swartberg and Besemkop from the stoep. A real stoep to sit and chat and have good coffee. Hope to do that within a year.

Withoek fermenting

2011-03-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

Withoek decided this year to make a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot with the purpose of ending up with a Bordeaux blend. We are a small cellar and don't get as much chance as the bigger cellars to experiment especially with blends.

Our Cab finished it's fermentation after a week and was basket pressed today. The Merlot was crushed at 25 degrees Balling and really looks good. Our Petit we will only harvest tomorrow and keep in cool storage until the it's time arrives to crush.

With all the wines we try and keep the fermenting temperature between 24 and 26 degrees for slower fermentation. Because of the cold storage of 4 days we do have a maceration period of about 48 hours before fermentation starts. Enough time for a lot of extraction of the flavours. Usually most of your colour is extracted within the first 72 hours of the fermentation process and with it most of your tannins as well. With the lower temperature I believe this happens at a slower rate but more controled.

News from our winemaker, Ronnie van der Walt. He liked Calitzdorp so much and decided to come more regurarly to keep watch as the Nederburg ad states to 'keep an eye on Mother Nature'. He asked to renovate the Withoek old tasting room into a 'bachelors flat'. I must add this must be the flat with the most beautiful view on the town and the Swartberg. Certainly nice having a new face on the Wesoewer road and certainly a big plus for Calitzdorp. Go and have a look.

On our more comercial agricultural side we are busy finishing off the Colombar and later this week the Petit, Ruby Cab and Tinta Barocca will get their turn. Then it is back to cleaning up and making ready for the new plantings for this year.

Cabernet is Ready

2011-02-22T04:23:00.000-08:00

Today we started to pick the Cabernet Sauvignon. This morning its sugar tested 25 degrees balling. The Petit Verdot and Merlot is still not ready and tested 23.0 and 23.6 degrees balling.

After picking we will cool the Cabernet down to 5 degrees Celsius. Two reason for this. The grapes usually will measure about the same temperature as the air or micro climate around the berries. When this happens in the Calitzdorp that temperature can be around 25 - 35 degrees Celsius. The fermentation will go quickly and put a lot of stress on my allready shaky cooling system. I also feel that a longer fermentation period under less stressful enviroment will lead to a better wine. In winemaking terms we are talking about a cold maceration before the fermentation.

The Merlot and Petit will probably be ready next week. And as with most things they will be probably be ready the same day.

Ronnie van der Walt one of the guys of last years wine school flew in on Saturday. He is planning to make a Merlot based blend. Ronnie previously also involved in restaurant business and an artist by training, works this year with Withoek Cellar to also master the art of winemaking. He allready had to take the samples for sugars and were busy cleaning and preparing the cellar for the grapes today.

We will report on Ronnie's status during this years harvest.

Final Countdown

2011-02-14T03:53:00.000-08:00

The 2010/11 season now slowly going into the final phases. Our peach harvest was good and even though the prices weren't the best they still paid their dues.
As with our plums we went straight to the market with the table grapes. The prices weren't that high but we can't really complain. Because of our dry weather in the beginning we had excellent quality fruit in December but with the continuos short spells of rain combinating with humid warm days the fungi attacked big time. The table grapes is usually thinner and thus the fungi get easier hold on them. Further they are mostly planted on strong rootstocks with big vigourous growth which contributes to good fungi growth climates within the canopy.
Even though the weather didn't play along our harvest was good. But we are now reaching a phase in which we started deliver it to the Calitzdorp Cellar. This week we actually starting to do the harvest all grapes very seriously.
Our red wine cultivars sugars are still very low. I think the 40mm of thunder storm contributed more than we think. The table grapes sugar funny enough tends to a higher value than previous seasons.
Our wine making weekend seems to change from the coming weekend to the following weekend because of the low sugars. The quality of the grapes really looks good and I think this might be a good season.

School of Wine

2011-01-18T05:38:00.000-08:00

Trying to predict the ripening process of grapes especially if you want to time it to perfection is usually the wrong way of producing great wines. But sometimes situations calls for a little daring. Selma contacted me the other day for another Kairos wine weekend. And it seems after a bottle or what of wine that the time was put on the third weekend of February. With peaches and early grapes ripening 7 days earlier it seems to be a good guess that we might have a little earlier ripening.
The School of Wine - Kairos version - is a weekend in which a few people get around and try and do the whole process of wine making in a weekend. Now a good winemaker or informed wine drinker might tell you quickly this is impossible. Well it is.
This weekend will contain a tasting and welcoming braai in the House of Straw at Zelma's country estate. The tasting will be an introduction into wine styles of the region - Calitzdorp. It will be very informal.
The Saturday is started with a grape pick. After last years heat wave we decided to pick the bulk of the grapes earlier the week and cold store it. This will be followed by Zelma's country breakfast. Something to strengthen the muscles for the day to follow.
The first real action in winemaking is the crushing of the grapes. After which we must inoculate it with the yeast. Do the necessary additions. This will all be shown and the more confident can actually get the chance of doing it themselves. The midday program consist of punch throughs and later pressings. Doing the necessary tasting of the juice and maturing wine will also be part of the midday program.
Towards the end of the day we will be doing a pressing. Yes here we will need all the muscle we can get. The press is an 60 year old basket press.
The Saturday evening will be a quiet one with a wine movie.
The Sunday morning another pressing. This time the grapes harvested the previous day - Muscadel will be pressed and fortified. This will be the wine of the year for the students. Everyone will receive after bottling which take place later the year three bottles of the product as proof of their total commitment to producing quality wine.
The weekend will end with a brunch at Selma's.
If your are interested do contact the lady of the hour - Selma at 0825765855 and join us.
The wine which you will also be part of making will be a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Withoek are planning to make a Bordeaux blend.

2011!!

2011-01-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

For Withoek Boerdery the new year arrived silently. Because of the smaller apricot harvest we had a very quiet start to the year. We actually had a bit of spare time to clean up the farm and do some very much needed vineyard work.

Our young vines needed to be trained. We removed the extra young shoots and only the strongest survive. This strong shoot was also cut at the cordon wire and the top three buds left. From those three buds we will choose later the season the two strongest for the the cordons of the vine. The rest is all removed to limit the competition. In the old days this process will only take place after a years growth but with correct irrigation and fertilization we get enough growth to train it very much sooner. This means also sooner harvest and thus more economical vineyard.

The apricots will soon go through the summer pruning. This is needed to initiate new growth and wood. Keeps your trees healthier and more consistant in production.

We also look into the possible grafting of some of our plum trees to another cultivar. This process involves the cut down of the trees to creat new shoots and the grafting on this new shoots. I have personally never done this and looking forward to the experience.

The grape harvest looks good and we just hope the weather plays in our favour. It can rain but must just clear up quickly so that we don't get a wet humid climate which will promote fungi growth.

The History of 2010 Apricots

2010-12-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

Yes it really came with a bang and our harvest of the apricots is finished. Withoeks production of apricots is much lower than last season. The contributing factors is because of the frost in August - bloom time.
Some of the lower orchards didn't even reach a tonne per ha. After everything added and done our harvest seems to be down by about 40%.
The dried fruit prices also gone south and so we decided to cut our losses and dry much less. The quality of the fruit which we did dry was much better than previous seasons and it shows in the dried fruit quality. The colour is really good and because of the early finish we could do the right thing and get it of the stellations much quicker which means higher water content in the fruit - thus it would be heavier and fuller. Much more attractive product.

Because of the dry weather our vineyards is very healthy and we sprayed this week which might be our last one. Our young vines need some attention and we plan to get to it in the next week or two.

The peaches we are also selling to the canner because of the world wide overproduction of dried peaches. We are lucky when one of the canners closed their depot in Calitzdorp another opened one. The prices is also lower than last year but atleast we do have a buyer. The peach size is a bit disappointing but could be contributed to micro element shortages. I picked it way to late and are spraying like mad to get it back but I think I might have lost this season fruit. In Calitzdorp we usually don't spray to much of the micro element but with peaches you must actually be very aware of it. The peach is a plant which easily shows such shortages and or toxic highs of micro elements.

Apricots!!

2010-11-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

This time of year it usually the only time you might get a traffic jam in Calitzdorp. With all the farmers trying to get the apricots down and to the canners it really is a rush time.
At Withoek we haven't finish yet. There is still block we must pick and the time doesn't seem to be enough. We finished with one canner Langeberg & Ashton last week. Rhodes Fruit Farms still need a small amount of tonnes to finish that contract and then the last is Boland Pulp.
While we are picking the apricots the other things like spray program for the vineyards and training of the younger vines fall behind. Every week I catch myself saying next week. Well next it will be.

First Pickings

2010-11-16T02:21:00.000-08:00

Withoek started to pick fruit last week. So far the fresh market prices were good and quality and size of fruit also. Withoek's Super Gold was finished harvest this week and the plums look as if they will also be gone by the end of the week.
I looked today at the Bullida orchards and got a bit of a scare. The fruit size is good but it seems that the fruit is ripening at a alarming rate. So we are going to start picking the Bullida's allready tomorrow. The bullida is the apricot mostly found in the Calitzdorp region and is used for drying and canning. You can also use it for making jam.
The next variety which is also a packing variety will be the Palsteyn. It is a beautiful apricot but unfortunately can only be used for fresh use. It's jam will turn dark soon after making and pitch black after a month. Nothing wrong with the taste though.
The prices of the dried fruit has gone down dramatically. The push in the markets seems to force us the producers into larger fruit.
It looks like we at Withoek will in future have to start spraying to get still larger fruit.
We are hoping also to plant a new type of Plum / Apricot cultivar which is marketed as a fruit for drying. SAD is very excited about this new product. We will plant about a half a hectare to just see how it grows and how the fruit reacts to our enviroment.

Early bird or early worm?

2010-11-03T03:05:00.000-07:00

Well the fruit is ripening. I allready had my first plum yesterday -watery but satisfactory. I will probably start to pick apricots and plums beginning next week. Really something to look forward to. My own diet usually changes considerably during harvest season. I do eat a hell of a lot of fruit from the trees and that usually continues from early November to middle of March.

The predictions for the season looks very uncertain. The certainties being a shortage of apricots and the canning guys don't want any apricots and peaches. The prices they are going to pay is very uncertain and the dried fuit company SAD says they will only have a meeting the 30th of November to decide the prices. The problem is I will be finished drying then. How must I buy in fruit if I don't know what I am going to get.

Well the grapes look well and the addition of Iron to the Peach trees really was what they needed if you look at the additional growth. Buys this week training the young vines - bend them while their young sort of approach.

Muscadel and Rain

2010-10-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

With the beautiful rains falling the last two weeks in Calitzdorp I start looking for something more sweet and warming to drink. Well Withoek just released a 375ml of Muscadel. Not too strong - alcohol of 15,5%. Very rewarding in the cooler evenings. And with the summer coming along you can certainly have it with ice as a sundowner.

The Muscadel as you will see is called The Kairos Muscadel. This is in recognition of the Kairos Skills programme which was run earlier this year with Withoek. A weekend course in making fortified wines. You will also see the names of the participants of this first project between the Withoek and Kairos. Watch out for our Cape Vintage also to be released early next year. This will also be in the 375ml bottle which makes it a very pratical packaging and an extremely nice present.

The rain measured on the farm was 22mm last night and yesterday together. I am informed that the rain measured above the Calitzdorp Irrigation dam was 25mm. The water is running down strongly and most of the bridges is overflown. So go and have a look, you will find most of us there. It more practical terms it does mean that we will have an irrigation run in November, December and nearly a full one in January. From this you can gather that the drought still has a grip on us. So pray for more rain.

A wonderful thing about rain is the effect on plants and especially people. Isn't everybody more friendly and the Monday less blue. For the plants you will notice more vigorous growth because of the nitrogen which dissolves in the rain water. Makes a fertilizer and irrigation.

Well enjoy the rain and do have a small Muscadel with it.

And it rained...

2010-10-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

Funny how quickly the weather changes. In Afrikaans we have a saying 'so onvoorspelbaar soos die weer'. Well last week it felt like it. With the drought making every person stressing, I usually look at the forecast often. Like daily two or three different forecast websites. Not one was predicting much happening except a light fall on Thursday. It changed very quickly into a warning for heavy falls on Wednesday. Well they were exaggerating. They measured 26mm up in the encatchment area and 14mm in town. Good enough.
A representative of the Calitzdorp Water Board told me we had 1 official full irrigation run left in the dam and then there will still be enough water to keep the town going for 8 months. That is if the usage stay as the averages were the last few months.
Well as a farmer on just judging from where the water were last night at the dam it seems we will have definately one extra maybe two irrigation runs. That will take us up to January. Not bad. Then we must just hope for rain in the next two / three months.
Well if you have a look at the growth of the plants it is just always a surprise how much better rain is in comparison to irrigation. The orchards and vineyards look so much more in vigorous growth phase after the rain on Thursday. Even the birds seem to sing a lot more.
The vineyards will get there third spray as do the peaches. The apricots because of the time of harvest nearing now I stopped the spray program. Maybe later just run a fruit fly spray. The weather which leads to a more humid climate will enhance fungi growth and thus more spraying will be needed.
For the concerned under you. Withoek will be audited for SA-Gap (South Africa - Good Agricultural Practice) which is an program to audit the whole approach to agricultural practice. As the concern for the Climate Change movement take on the consumer their fears and demands must more and more be met by the producers of food. The SA - Gap is an South African Auditing program which is based on EuroGap. Why two? The cost. EuroGap cost a lot of money. Also the laws of our country makes that we sometimes can't meet the spesific requirements of the EuroGap. For instance they want us to burn the containers of the different spays. The SA law forbids us to do it.
Withoek still have to put a lot of things into plays to meet all the necessary requirements but we are on our way.
This week we will finish the thinning of the peaches and plums. After that the Plastic in the newly planted vineyards and after that the suckering or the vineyards follow. Lots to be done and not much time. Seems like harvest is coming a long?

The fruit business

2010-10-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

With our currency making muscle all over the world makes all the hi-tech stuff prices drop like over ripe apricots and unfortunately the export prices also. A friend of mine who runs a business in office equipment talks of all the specials running. DVD's, printers, laptops / notebooks, scanners, CD players, external harddrives, etc. Unfortunately with the luxury the apricot / peach canning industry prices all are going down. Like a cliff.
Maybe my trees knows what is going on and they just didn't flower and the few that did, didn't do it with passion. A flower here and there. Real sort of lazy stuff. Why? I am not sure. They got a real good punch of fertilizer at the end of last season - not overdoing it - just enough. The peaches which is in total overproduction are carrying fruit as if it is the last season. A lot of thinning is done. Not a great site for a farmer driving past a orchard with most of its fruit on the orchard floor.
The vines never looked better. Good growth with lots of possible bunches. I allready sprayed twice and will have the third spray on next week. Also have to cover the peaches this week. Maybe even start with fruit fly control. I just hope the gardeners in town - if you only have one type of fruit tree - please do fruit fly control. It doesn't cost much but makes a huge difference to the surrounding farmers. They, the fruit flys, will allready be very active and with the amount of small gardens with fruit trees there will allready be a over populated fruit fly colony inside the town.
We still busy planting the last poles and hopefully will be finished by the end of this week.
The green fig season also starts and I will be picking my green figs. It must sort of be big without having a hole in the centre. If you have any, I am interested in buying.
The irrigation is also running smoothly and the orchards and vineyards really looks healthy and strong. Hopefully we do get rain to continue this excellent start to the 2010 season.

First fruit visible

2010-09-16T00:59:00.000-07:00

Here at Withoek we are busy finishing up the new plantings. The finishing touches sometimes takes longer than the actual job. Poles being planted must be done as well as the plastic mulch covers. The covers in the case of the drip irrigation will go over the drip lines. This makes the dripper doing his / her job under cover literally. With the huge loss to evaporation of the water then sort of more controlable. The micro irrigation is more of a problem. The micro easily blocks so it must be cleaned regurally.
The first leaves on the apricot plantings allready shows and even the Chenin blanc allready shows buds swelling. Very promising.
The apricot harvest looks smaller than the previous season due to a frost in mid August. The peaches funny enough which is higher up in the valley were not affected as much. The peaches is allready nice sizes and we will have to start to do the thinning very soon. The idea is to do it before the pip inside the peach hardens. When that happens most of the division of cells stopped and the only way the peach can grow is by enlarging the individual cells. You thus have a limitation on size because of less cells. This also is the case for the other stone fruit - apricots and plums. We will also thin the plums and the apricots designated for the fresh market.
At the fruit drying plant we started last week with the washing of the stellations. This is done by hand and is quite labour intensive. With less fruit we hope that quality and size will make up the difference at least in our financial statements.
Withoek also have a clean up project going. We provide all our labour houses with a rubbish bin so that they can clean up around the houses. It really is a process making people acknowledge the need for clean surroundings. A clean enviroment also will sort of lead to a healthier family.

Summer kicks in

2010-09-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

With the temperatures slowly rising to the early 30's the water usage of the plants with young leafes rises rapidly. This means the water usage grows dramatically and the stress on the new irrigation system rise.
As with most Mondays even those well planned there always turns something out not fitting altogether. A leak here, fertilizer tanks not fitted and worker not turning up after the 'all pay' weekend. All of this contributes to something called 'Blue Monday'. Now what went right. My peaches were sprayed for the necessary insectocides, disease cures and micro element additions. My apricots are getting the same treatment to make sure the smaller harvest provides better quality fruit. Some of my vineyards started to but and I also sprayed them with contact pesticides and a small bit of micro element additions.
The new plantings really keeping me busy and out of the cleaning the orchards / vineyards, I decided to put the old 'skottel ploeg' to work. More mechanics at work less spraying.
The new plantings will come to a halt tomorrow with the finishing of the Indraai block of Colombard. The poles at the Chenin blanc block will also be finished tomorrow and we then can begin with the Colombard. With rain being predicted for Saturday till Monday - about an inch altogether - I want to get most of these things as near as possible to finish. So expect a big forest of poles in the valley. The fertigations systems also being launched this week make this an very eventful and busy week. Hold thumbs everything goes according to plan.

The house of straw project is postponed to October this year. So this make it a big chance of still getting involved in the more sustainable housing projects. Please do contact Selma. The presenters is really good and well informed on other issues concerning the greener lifestyle. Certainly not something to be missed.

The church 'dankseggings basaar' is also this weekend at the station. A definate for most of the Calitzdorpers. Come get good produce at farm prices and support the local church. The Church building will be 100 years old this 17 of December 2010 for those who is counting.

HOUSE OF STRAW

2010-09-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

Once their was three little piglets. Their names were....

The straw bale house workshop is held on the 27 to 29 of September 2010. The organizer is Zelma Kriek and she can be contacted on 082 576 5855. The cost is R1000 and includes lunch and 'verversings'. This workshop is being done at Zelma's farm on the Besemkop/Groenfontein road. About 1km from The Red Coffee Pot or centre of town on your left hand. The grey house with Blue Gum trees.
Do support this informative and practical workshop. The presenters are from Jo'burg and they are Green. Yes very Green. So give yourself freedom from Kannaland Municipality and go to Zelma's workshop. Unfortunately you still have to pay some taxes and present plans for you project to them but that is all.

Enjoy

The birth of a vineyard

2010-09-07T02:01:00.000-07:00

Last week the vines were delivered and because I was going to a Festival namely the Geyser 'saamtrek', we decided only to start planting this week. The vines were stored in a cold room at 5 degrees and the roots being watered every half a day. After their stay in the cold room we have to rehidrate it in water for 24hrs before planting. This all come down to that we can only start to plant today.
We started with the Chenin blanc which is situated near the Calitzdorp Country Lodge. This being a bit more elevated above the riverbed which also means more airflow. Chenin is a cultivar prone to have rot in its bunches especially if it is not well aerated. The Chenin blanc is also a cultivar which carries a good yield so the soils must be well drained. Both of these objectives is reached with the specific terrior of the Hoenderboer as we call it. (For the less informed a chicken farmer once owned the piece of land.) We decided to plant 3000 vines / day as we want to water them all and see that we get finished planting before the end of the day. I think we underestimated but that is always better.
The blooming period for the apricots is also finished and the frost a few weeks ago really hit us hard especially in the blocks nearest to the town. Some of the trees only carried one or two flowers which means no harvest. The blocks higher up away from the river aswell as further from town had better flowering. I also took out a hectare of apricots to make place for the new plantings hoping the Herminashof blocks will deliver but you can never trust or predict nature.
The peaches in contrast to the apricots had a brilliant flowering period and we will really have to thin to get the right size. The funny thing is SAD allready let me know they are looking for apricots and not so much peaches likewise Langeberg. That is the agricultural balances for you.
The vineyards are just busy budding and we will soon see how their flowering goes. I expect with no natural intervention that it might be a good year. But only time will tell.

Planting season

2010-08-24T22:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to fetch the trees at the nursery. We are planting a apricot cultivar called Super Gold. It is actually an older cultivar and sort of out of fashion for the fresh fruit markets. It's biggest positive is the early ripening as well as good fruit size. It do sort of cracks if it gets to much rain which is why it's not used anymore.
Just by clearing the ground for the new plantings I managed to free nearly 0,33ha of extra land for planting. Surprising how much land is unused because of flood irrigation's limitations of use, roads, and bad planning.
As with most things all does not go according to plan. After getting the trees early and getting nearly 1600 trees in the soil my irrigation system (new) failed me. A big dissappointment. Hopefully this morning we will get that corrected. As with most new things added to older systems the older systems can not usually carry the newer power / pressure. Allready got two pipes bursting and a new valve blowing water. All in the process of expansion.
I know today is going to be a much better day and we will irrigate the new planting efficiently as well start to irrigate the others too.
I am very positive about raining coming in September / October. I read yesterday that their is a Low pressure over Gough Island which apparently means that lots of saturated air will be pushed over Southern Africa and which means spring rain. We are due for some of that so get the umbrella's out. I was asked a few times why plant in such a dry spell. Well I guess the answer is Hope. Such a difficult period usually means cutting out the older wood - in my case literally - and provide for the younger. But as I said the rain is coming and we must be prepared.

The final preparation

2010-08-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

As with most things it sometimes feels like an impossible task putting together a big project but the funny thing is it starts just by doing something. Even the wrong direction might lead to the acceptable final product / system.
Our new pump arrived yesterday and last night I was wide awake mostly because of my youngest but also because of the planning of the new irrigation system. First we must pump through lines that was not used by anyone for maybe 8 to 10 years. And to make things more interesting the irrigation line was open most of that time.
The first step is to pump without any filtration into the old line to clean it and to suck the feeding pipe from the dam which might be filled with slush. This pump will run like that at a pressure of about 2.3 bar for 3 to 4 hours and the water will be splashed into the river. If the water is clean and thus the pipe on either side of the pump is suffiecently clean we will introduce the filter bank. From then we will try and catch up on the back log of irrigation for months of July / August. This is actually my biggest problem since the roots allready started their growth season and will be looking for water as well as fertilizer. Hopefully we will catch up and provide at the right time the correct dosage of fertilizer.
It is also tonight the Women Wine Wednesday. Twenty people will be attending and we hope all the ladies do enjoy the get together. I think it might be something to grow into something more formal and more diverse with other likewise businesses also provide an evening of leisure for the ladies of the town. I hope you all meet someone interesting that you never met before in town.

A Plan comes together!!

2010-08-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

With all the pipes and irrigation stuff delivered we started putting it all together. As with most things in life the practical side doesn't always go with the theory. Somethings seems to be missing in action and we had to drive everyday this week to Oudtshoorn to get the necessary bends, T's, etc.
But even if it seem to go a bit 'deurmekaar' things do fit in nicely. The process of laying out the pipes and connecting it goes much quicker than expected. I finished my micro irrigation pipelines yesterday and today I am going to tackle the drip irrigation next to the Calitzdorp Country Lodge. The drippers we use there is in line drippers as well pressure compensating meaning that every dripper will deliver the exact same amount of water. This is a must for uneven land like we have there.
Oom Apie finished building the two filter banks and one is allready installed. The other one is ready we are just waiting for the new pumps to arrive. Irrigation pumps is a science on its own. I am no expert but learned a lot the last month. We were lucky to buy two similar pumps - one to do the job the other a back up. Yes being in Calitzdorp does have its draw backs and one is you must always have a back up pump.
I hope with the speed we are going now to start planting maybe next week late the apricots and the week after that the first of the vineyards.
My irrigation also started with the one system and I am running a twelve hour cycle just to wet up the soil. It is really surprising to see how dry the soils further from the riverbed is. You can also see the peaches blooming very promisingly. I hope for a big harvest there.
Hope all the plans stay on par as it did so far.
PS The labels for the Shiraz arrived and I will be labeling next week and Tuesday. The wines will be ready for Women Wine Wednesday.

A new day

2010-08-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

Well with most of the preparations done on Withoek, we are now busy digging the holes and it is coming on surprisingly well. The workers are doing about 10 holes an hour with about averaging 14 working we should be finishing somewhere next week. What surprised me most is that we drove the tractors and my bakkie on the soil after the bulldozer ripped it and the places where we sort of left a small road the soil immediately were a lot harder than the other places. Just emphasising the pressure vehicles put on the soil during the everyday work -spraying, discing, etc.
Well you will see that there is a new blog on my links. This blog called http://www.diecalitzdorper.blogspot.com/ is a open blog where you guys can inform your fellow citizens on the happenings according to you in Calitzdorp. Anything from maybe a positve remark to just straight info like Laurence make excellent bread. I do believe there is a place for people to put info out.
The username is the email adress calitzdorp@hotmail.com and the password is a bit like the guesswork we had to do a few Sundays back at the Amazing Race - Calitzdorp. The clue is: It stands proud over the town and can be seen from 10km from the east. You can also go to the blog itself where I do explain a bit more. Hope you all take part.
My first dates again is
13 August 2010 -Wine Auction at Kwagga (Outeniqua High School)
15 August 2010 - Gemeente ete at the NG Kerk - get tickets from Marinda at the Church office
18 August 2010 - Withoek Women Wine Wednesday - Let Leanne know at 0442133639 before the 10th of August

Wine, women and .... spades

2010-08-02T02:34:00.000-07:00

Well this month seems to contain everything. The wine part is the launch of the Withoek Shiraz the 18th of the month for the better part of the homo sapiens. The rest of us is going to wait till the 19th. We are going to bottle the Ruby Port this week. Looks like a traditional style but still sweet and very accomdating port.
The women is a bit slow out of the marks but this is apparently their right during this month. Leanne is putting together a list and she will deliver to people that indicated to me / her that they might be interested. Please give us just enough chance to prepare. So let the RSVP be about the Monday the 16th. I think that might be fair.
Well we are spading here in Withoek . Started to digg the holes for the plants. Interesting enough that is a very important part to great enough loose soil for early developement of the roots. The sides also should be a bit rough to allow the roots to enter the bigger part of the soil it is going to grow in. By digging to a small a hole you might end up with a tree / vine which may not grew up strong and be sort of limited to the hole which you dugg. You then dwarf the plant and hence smaller yields and less growth expected.
The irrigation project is also on its way this week. Digging all the necessary channels for the new pipelines and getting the irrigation system going. Quite an undertaking.
Feel free to comment on anything I do read and try and answer most of it.

The numbers

2010-07-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

Numbers are sort of the things that make the world go round. It sort of explains a lot of things. I saw the other day someone claims he can predict the future with a algorithm. Great for him. We need a few number here too.
1. I had some great respons on the Women's Wine Wednesday and Leanne printed some lovely cards. We still want to know who is interested to send the invites out. Contact here on 044 21 33639 otherwise we are going to harass you till you all show up.
2. The church events which I wrote on earlier dates is the following: Wine Auction held at Outeniqua High School at the 13th of August; The 'gemeente ete' at the Calitzdorp Church Hall will be the 15th and cost R50 - what a bargain. Contact Marinda for tickets as they must prepare them for the masses at 044 21 33311; the church bazaar will be held in the middle of September
3. Our dam is about 29% full. You can get this detail on the www.dwaf.co.za website. This is the official departement of water affairs website. So by the way I forgot to mention that this was also the first cement irrigation dam build in South Africa.
4. This is the amount of people having sinus problems in my family.

Because of the low level of the irrigation dam the Water Board decided to have the first 'beurt' only at the end of August. For me as farmer this immediatly is something of a problem as the plants are starting to bud. With budding the top part of the plant start its physiological processes as the temperature during the day as well as the mean temperature is higher. The soil temperatures will still be low and because of that the root system might still be in rest. You can verify this by digging a hole and looking at the roots of the plants. If you see a lot of thin white roots then you know your plant allready started its anual growth season. I hope it won't create to much of a problem as we only have three months left till the picking of the apricots.
I will start my irrigation schedule in the middle of August - a month later than usual - sort of to accomodate the drought effect. We must now get some water!!!

The times are changin' ....again

2010-07-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

I was surprised when I drove past my cling peach trees the weekend. The blooms are allready formed and will probably bloom within the next few weeks. It is a good thing and bad. The good part is the season starts and might be a early one. The bad if we do get some colder weather - frost - the trees might loose some flowers which in turn mean less fruit. The bees are also not that active at this stage meaning less possible fruit again. We can just hope for the best.
Still busy marking out my blocks for planting. I erased the block next to Calitzdorp Country Lodge. One of the vertical lines were not straight. This in it self is not a big problem. The thing is for the next 25 years I will drive buy and know that one of the rows is not perfect. Better repeat the whole process.
Some news of happenings in the community: The Dutch Reformed church is really getting busy. There will be a 'gemeente ete', an wine auction with Outeniqua High School and the normal church bazaar as well a choir performance. They are not sure about the bazaar and the form it will take on and are hoping for some input from the congregation and / or community for a better way of fundraizing during that. So anyone with an idea please let Marinda know at the church office (across the ACVV building). I really hope more people will get involved in this congregation even if it is only in supporting the different functions they have. SO GO AND SEE MARINDA AND GET THE DATES RIGHT AND SUPPORT THE CHURCH.
The church cornerstone was laid in 1910 which makes it in use nearly 100 years old. The town of Calitzdorp became a town because it had an congregation and started to have services of their own here. Another interesting piece of info is that the Calitzdorp dam was built only a few years later. A hundred years ago there was a lot of people with courage, hope and innovation in town. Not unlike now. If you look at the surnames of the people in those days playing a role in building the town the familiar ones like Fourie, Oosthuizen, Nel, Brink, Pretorius, Calitz, Geyser and a few others. Add to that the new ones investing in the town we can only go better. (Pleas don't use that 'i' or 'l' words - deffinately not kosher / politcal correct or nice)

Withoek Women Wine Wednesday

2010-07-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

At my cellar we have as an assistant a woman who worked for my father for more than ten years. Now I am on the farm for almost three years and she still works for me. Leanne April is a born and bred Calitzdorper and her dad used to be a taxi driver for the Bergsig as well some of the Schools in the region. She was also invited to do a harvest (making wine in Virginia in the United States) at Afton Mountain. This was done in 2006 for 2 months. She enjoyed it and came back more interested and hungry for knowledge about the wine making process.
Leanne is planning a Women Wine Wednesday. As you know August is the month to celebrate womanhood all over the country and so does Withoek want to honour them. We are planning the 18th of August a womans night where for a certain fee we will provide a snack, wine tasting and a bit of socializing afterwards for the women of Calitzdorp (I am also not invited because of the natural physical disability). Further there is also a theme: Purple for the red wine. This is an event will take place at 6 o'clock the evening at the Withoek tasting room and promise to be a lot of fun. This will also be the launch of our first single cultivar dry red wine the Withoek Shiraz 2009.
We hope that you guys will show up in numbers and do contact Leanne for an invitation to the event at 044 2133639. You can also email us at withoek@telkomsa.net for more info.

House of straw? and other stories

2010-07-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

I decided to have bonding session with my oldest son, Kobus. We had breakfast at the Spekboom Cottages and afterwards watch rugby with all the real locals there. Breakfast was excellent and I am not going to say to much about the rugby. It really was made into a great thing by James, Marie and Jean at the Spekboom Cottage. Thanks James you are really a great friend.
During the bonding session with other people also attending including Alex, Allan, Fritz and Tony I realized that there is a bit of a blind spot for the movement of information within any community in Calitzdorp. The only one really communicating very well is Hennie Smit with the KBU. The need is more about info on what is happening. In a small community like our own we sometimes don't always get in the right circles to get the info on things happening. The only real way is by the word of mouth. That is how I heard about the potjiekos of the church a few months ago as well as the Koos Kombuis show at Dorpshuis - both were excellent. I think that a blog for us with a few people of the different communities within the greater Calitzdorp must be able to excess and / or give info to a person to put it on. In this way you can quickly advertize for a school, church, private, any real function/happening/course/etc.
The first one I am going sort of going to advertize here is the Straw house course which is going to be done by Sonja Armstrong and Deon Kriek. Both big time involved in the 'Green' approach to life. Both of them is coming to present this course in - the Port Capital, Calitzdorp. The local contact person is Zelma Kriek. She lives in Oubaas Calitz's old house on the Groenfontein road. If you still don't know contact Laurence at Lorenzo's / Pizza Place - he serve some excellent pizza and curry and has opened a very nice deli with fresh bread and interesting cheeses.
At Withoek itself we are preparing for the new irrigation main line. Unfortunately for us the storm water pipe underneath the roads is blocked with soil and roots. We did contact the Eden Districts Municipality (Ralph Dixon) to come and have a look. So any other such blocked pipes or road reparation can be reported to him in his Oudtshoorn office.
The pruning is also going smoothly and they are nearly finished with the red cultivars.
On the Shiraz which was bottled last week. After again tasting it Chrissie finally put 'black forest cake' as the determining flavour which she picked up on it. That is why wine making is such a pleasure. You don't buy naartjie, orange or apple flavour product but a product that first produces different flavours at different temperatures for different people and to make it more interesting it changes over time and from bottle to bottle AND WITH THE FOOD ASWELL AS THE COMPANY YOU HAVE! So have my wine only with your best friends especially those you don't see often. There is still 2500 such occasions coming up (that is how many bottles there is) for all in Calitzdorp.

Chocolate Shiraz

2010-07-16T02:20:00.000-07:00

After yesterdays report on the Shiraz I thought of getting the real proffesionals in with a tasting of the Withoek Shiraz 2009. Margaux Nel of Boplaas and my wife, Chrissie, both liked the wine and got more of the Mocca (rich Coffee flavours) and the dark Chocolate flavours. It certainly is a bigger wine with still very active tannins but certainly soft enough to be enjoyed now. I would recommend to have it with food especially red meats with a rich sauces. There is only 2800 bottles of this product and me and Chrissie will try and get rid of 365 of them for the year coming. We need the Calitzdorp citizens to come to the party for the other 2435. I think it is a bargain at R40 a bottle.
We will also be bottling the Muscadel next week. Smaller packaging (375ml). Excellent idea for a present knowing there will only be about 800 bottles of that product.
Best of luck for all running in the Calitzdorp Half Marathon tomorrow. There is also a shorter 10km for those of us that don't like to get too tired. The veld looks magnificent with the Aloes blooming. Certainly a nice way to enjoy Calitzdorp.

Withoek Shiraz

2010-07-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

After the cold weather coming down on us lately we decided we might as well start bottling. As a small winery we try and put our own stamp on everything. Controling of the total wine making process is not negotiable. We are probably also the most eco friendly bottling plant in the world with all the processes being done manually. The process of bottling two thousand litres of Shiraz will take up to tomorrow - 16th of July.
At the laste tasting the wine had a very promising structure with good spice and red berry flavours. The alcohol is a bit high (15,6%) but as I see it you get half a bottle free. Thus must be a bargain. It is certainly a wine that you we would want to keep for a year of two but the softer tannins will allow you to enjoy it now.
The grapes used for the wine comes from the red hills facing south south west. The right aspect for the cooler southern breezes in the summer. Further with production of only 8 tonnes per ha it is also some of the more quality plantings in Calitzdorp as a whole. The irrigation of this block is done with pressure compensating drippers and fertigation is also done according to the needs and yield.
I also learnt about an interesting website for weather. It is a Norwegian website and it gives 5 different points in the Calitzdorp region. I am not sure about the accuracy but it is certainly something to have a look at. The website is www.yr.no. Go and have a look. Quite interesting.
On the farm side we are finished with the soil preparation and started this week of measuring out of the blocks. We also had all the blocks measured for the irrigation systems. We are planning a computer organized system for the new blocks. Give us more control.
On the negative side: some of our irrigation ball valves were stolen for scrap metal. If anyone do have an idea what / where / who please let me know.

Nice lunch with the Danes

2010-07-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Two Danish soccer followers came to visit Withoek on Wednesday. What a nice surprise. If we knew they would stay this long we would have organized something for their team as well. Maybe a semi final.
It was great having the first guests of Wim Dreyer, a South African tourist guide, working in the Southern Cape region for lunch. We couldn't never compete with the restaurants in town like Dorpshuis, Rooi Ketel and The Handelshuis, but with a good 'roosterkoek' en boerewors with a glas of Withoeks wines it was a real great event.
The dam's enlargment come on nicely. It is really something seeing those big machines working and moving 8 to 10 cubes of soil with ease. If I didn't pay for it I would want them to continue a bit longer. We also decided to add another piece of land to our one block which will then become 2,8ha. This block next to the river on the Indraai road will be planted with Colombard and is aimed at the Brandy market. They call it in the wine circles ' rabat' which is the wine they distill to make brandy and or spirits.
The biggest job this week was removing the bigger stones from the vineyard next to the Calitzdorp Country lodge - Allan Fabigs' place. The stones might make mechanical work on the soil difficult and be a bit hard on the ploughs. There is though a few stones which is very big and we will have to bury. I thought of loading a few and put them at the entrance of Herminashof. Might be nice for directions. Go to the stones and turn left.

Week full of work

2010-07-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

This week we finished most of our preparation of the soils for the different new plantings. Sort of finishing of with the removal of the rootstocks especially on the blocks we are going to plant the same type of plant. In Afrikaans they talk of 'wisselbou'. Because of the size of the previous blocks and the variety of cultivars as well as fruit types it makes it very difficult planting a new type of fruit and the economics forces you to plant as quick as possible to fully utilizing your possible natural resource soil.
Next step is the lay out of the blocks with chalk. We will then see precisely where the rows will be and where the irrigation pipes must come. We will also begin to dig the channels into which the irrigation laterals will go as well as the new pipeline system running down to Herminashof. With this comes a total new irrigation system which runs out of a dam which allready has to service a irrigation system. Thus the dam must be enlarged to accomodate this extra water volume.
The Withoek workers community also lost a member the past week. Dina Meiring died on Saturday the 3rd of July. She was the wife of Frans van Staden which was the secret behind the beautiful garden of Herminashof. They have one son Elton Meiring. Frans was arrested on Tuesday the 6th of July. Unfortunately for the small community around Withoek violence is still a possible solution to many a problem.
Chrissie is thinking of getting a program going amongst the Withoek community to try and eliminate the use of violence as means of solving problems. We will have to stop this soon.
Willem Mampa is the new gardener and allready started on Monday. We really hope he can fill the efficient shoes of Frans.
Also since Monday we started our annual pruning of the vineyards. We started with the early cultivars first and work our way through the spread.

THE BULLDOZER FINALLY ARRIVES

2010-06-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

The bulldozer finally arrives today. It will be a 30 tonne machine which will rip open the soil to about 1,2m hopefully. This will mean in agricultural terms much more soil available for the plant to extract water and nutrients. The deeper the better really. The soils down by the river seems to have lots of clay and is quite deep. A hole we dugged earlier to about 2m still had no restrictions. We expect here lots more growth and also bigger harvest. We therefore have to plant a bigger trellise system. We will be using a 5 wire trellise system with 2,4m poles. If planted the poles will be about 1,8m above soil level.
The rows will run North South meaning you will get sunlight on both sides and less of the big Calitzdorp heat in midday. Meaning less sunburn on the bunches. Also the rows will be longer and less amount of rows. This means less anchor poles and anchors which is the more expensive and important part of putting up a trellise system. Withoek will be going into recycling by using 13 inch tyres as part of our anchors. This giving a use for 25 years for those tyres allready used.
The plants itself will be planted further apart (1,5m) than leaner soils because they will develope bigger root systems because of the better soil type. The rows will be 2,5m wide meaning more rows which leads to more plants which leads to more harvest.
As you gather it is quite an expensive excersice. The total cost according to the good bookkeepers amont us is about R70 000 to R100000 per hectare. As we are planting quite a few this year we pray for an excellent summer and harvest.

SNOW!!

2010-06-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

On Monday the snow came down. Some well appreciated rain also fell in the Little Karoo. Only 8mm registered on Withoek. My workers were send home early yesterday and I took the chance to go and do some business in Oudtshoorn. As usual did the tour to Boshof Boumateriale. A few gems can be found there. Beautiful sash windows - the old big ones in very good condition.
We are still putting up the 'no entry' plates. This is done after a meeting with the Police in March in which the Besemkop area was pointed out as a crime hotspot. Most of the crimes is break inn's, especially empty buildings. To see that those don't get to the buildings we will try and see to it that they don't come near the problem areas in the first place. We are also working closely with the ACVV with the neglected children in the area. Also getting the children to school in the school term is now closely watched by us.

Amazing Race - Calitzdorp

2010-06-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

As the world prepares itself for the most glorious event of the beautiful game Calitzdorp prepares itself for the Amazing Race. On Sunday the Connexio social club will hold an amazing race event through Calitzdorp. The previous one was a big success and I know this one will just be better.
Well the big fever also hit the workers at Withoek Calitzdorp and they asked nicely if they can't get earlier leave on this great day. So from 12.00 clock you will find most of them on the streets on their way to Queens to celebrate Bafana's success prematurely.
Workwise the B-list is far from finished. We are busy clearing the Indraai street - the street round the koppie with the 'Zimbabwe ruins' on the top which you see so magnificently from James's stoep at Spekboom. The street is the municipality's responsibility but as with most things they don't get to it. So in the Sandy Alpert mode we will do it at our cost. They only users of the road is mr AJ van Coller, Withoek and Selma's daughter Lize. It is a very nice walk with views of the future vineyards, orchards (still to be planted 2010) and the Wesoewer areas. Sort of give a bit of the farmy feel. The bushes there were a bit wild and sort of closed the road nearly at certain places. This will be altered within the next week.

THE B-LIST

2010-06-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

As we are waiting for the machinery to be available for our soil preparation we sort of get a chance to do all that not so important stuff. Putting the irrigation lines on a wire about 30cm above the soil, mending fences, etc.
We are putting up "No unauthorised entry" plates on our gates. The reason being for all the unwanted wanderers of the planet. For you that allready asked me and/or the other landowners permission are still authorised and you can continue on your daily journey through rural Calitzdorp.
My sheep escaped and got hold of Sandy's garden. Lady like she is she even brought me the 'jakkalsdraad' to mend my fences and to keep my sheep out of her garden. I think that is the first for me. Thanks Sandy.
The bottles for the Shiraz, Ruby Port as well as Muskadel arrived today. So hopefully at the end of the week we can be finished with the filtering of the wines and bottling may start next week. With lots of rain predicted for next week it might be a good plan to get to bottling of these wines. Maybe a bit of tasting as well.
Calitzdorp Cellar has brought out their new label. Very simple - in a good sense - unsophisticated, honest label. I like it very much and the branding will be 'Calitzdorp Cellar' from now on. The new wines is a Sauvignon blanc - a bit of the typical greeness with a hint of tropical fruit, a very good buy and support your local farmers.
Their Cabernet Sauvignon got some nice dry tannin structure, red berry on the pallet with an almond aftertaste. A very dark, nearly black wine. A good company for red meat. The Ruby Port also a spicy number with lots of sugar - a definate must for this weekend. Think snow on Swartbert - a glass of port. You can't go wrong. The Chardonnay is again probably the best made in the Calitzdorp region. Nice creamy with lemon lime and honey. A real treat.
Well lets go see what is left on the B-list....

Waiting!!

2010-06-02T03:09:00.000-07:00

Most of the preparation that can be finished for the new plantings is finished. So at Withoek we are now focusing on the things on the B list. Things we don't normally have time for. My job creation project is also coming on nicely. I have about 10 people making wood for the local market, that is restaurants, guest houses, any one really, that wants wood for braaiing and /or 'kaggels' in the Calitzdorp region. I think it is a great opportunity for these people that stay in our area that don't have other income and I am surprised at their commitment to the project. They want to work and earn some money and make living.
Thanks also to the people that support this project through the buying of the wood. I don't think you guys know how many people you support through just the buying of the product.

FIRST SNOW??

2010-05-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

The winter seems to be setting in slowly. Hopefully the first snow will fall this weekend. Warming our hearts will be the Super14 final in Orlando though. If the Stormers pulls this one off it will be coffee at Handelshuis on Sunday morning.
Most of our trees and vines that we want to replace is now removed. Just waiting for the big machines for soil preparation. We also going to heighten the one damwall. With the additional addition of 2,9 metres we will add another 11 000 kubic metres to this one dam. This volume of water would be enough to irrigate the 12 extra ha assigned to the dam by extra irrigation system added. This will bring the land under drip / micro irrigation to 90% of our irrigatable land.
Next week we will be filtering the Shiraz, Muscadel and Ruby Port. The bottles will also be brought in from the suppliers and hopefully the first bottling will start in June.
The Shiraz is really looking good. It does have an alcohol of about 16,5% but it is in full balance with an extract of around 40. The Muscadel is busy being protein stabilized and this do take time. We also have a real sweet ruby port for the winter. Very much in the portuguese style. While on the subject. The SAPPA (SA Port producers association) is now busy taking stance against the EU after they refused to pay the 15 milj Euro for us after we changed the name from Port to Cape. We are now not going to change the naming locally but still going to use the name Cape with exports. This change should have happened in 2012.

PREPARATION FOR NEW PLANTINGS

2010-04-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

We started to take out the old vineyards and orchards to make place for the new plantings. We are taking out old Palomino wine grape cultivar, Hanepoot as well as Bullida apricot orchard. The new plantings will consists of Chenin blanc, Colombard and apricot cultivar Super Gold.
Our area planted will grow by 2 ha. This keeping up planning to enlarge the planting area to 60 ha over the next 5 years. This falling in place with the idea of getting production up and the overheads lower.

Koos Kombuis in Calitzdorp!!

2010-04-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Ja Koos was in Dorpshuis in Calitzdorp. Certainly a must see. This was a very nice surprise for us here who missed most of the KKNK. I still think this must have been the best of the whole festival. We also had a show of Stef Kruger added as a bonus.
April and May is usually the clean up months. The preparation for new plantings is also done. We will take out about 2 ha of mostly apricots but also a small bit of Hanepoot. The plantings consists of apricots (Super Gold cultivar) and wine grapes (Chenin blanc and Colombar).
The new developement will make it possible for us to enlarge our production area but also expand our irrigation to the old family farm, Herminashof. This means that more than 90 percent of our farm will be able to be irrigated via drippers or micro irrigation. Certainly great for a dry arid region like Calitzdorp.
We also planning to enlarge on of our irrigation dams. This means that our total irrigation system will become four different units. We are looking at a smaller little project which will use another dam which we have to enlarge which will bring our total usable dams to 7.
Well this week we will flood irrigate our last time this season and still no rain. Calitzdorp certainly needs a very cold and wet winter.

WINEMAKING WEEKEND

2010-03-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

During the weekend of the 19 to 21 February Withoek presented a winemaking weekend. The organizer was Zelma of the local skills centre Kairos. We hosted four guests which enjoyed this informative wine making weekend.

We started off the weekend with a wine tasting which showed the different styles of fortified wines. Which was followed by a excellent braai.

At 6 the next morning the grape picking started and it actually took a bit longer than expected. The crushing followed. After breakfast the additions were done as well as the punch through on the port style wine. The guests had the afternoon off and this was enjoyed keeping out of the Calitzdorp sun which was a bit severe during February.

During the late afternoon the pressing of the port style wine skins was managed and all took part. The fortifications was done tipical port style at 11.30 on Saturday evening.

On the Sunday morning the guests had to do the pressing of the Muskadel Jerepico skins after which the immediate fortification happened.

The weekend was finished by a lovely breakfast at the Zelmas beautiful bale venue. We allready have people being interested in next years wine weekend and we will let you know what, where and when.

Thanks to Zelma and Razel for all the trouble, advertising, cooking and support during this maiden adventure into the winemaking world.

So far so good

2010-02-26T04:53:00.000-08:00

Did not have always have time to update my blog the last month. Harvest sort of keep you out of contact with the information highway.
The harvest was a good one. The drier weather really helped to keep everything healthy. Apricots was a very good harvest with a nearly 70% better yield. Not bad. After the record harvest of the peaches last year I sort of expect a drop in yield but it still surprised me with a average of 35 tons per ha.
The grapes is still a mistery for me. It at this stage looks like very much the same as last year.

HARVEST!!

2009-11-19T04:39:00.000-08:00

We started with harvest seriously this week. We allready past last years sales on the plums to the fresh markets. The apricots seems to be slower and their seems to be a lot of uneven ripeness. We also started to dry some apricots and so far the results looks promising.

The veld is a bit dry and we certainly needs some rain in the nearby future otherwise their might be problems.

Our vines are healthy and our spray program seems to be on target. Hopeful another big havest lies ahead.

2009-11-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we had a Geyser family weekend in Nystroom (Mollimole??). The wines of Withoek was well received and we were sold out within a few hours. It was a very enjoyable weekend although my youngest son made it a bit difficult in the evenings. Our new range - the Geyser range (375ml) tawny Port was a definate hit. It seems as if the whole packaging is a big drawing card.
We also started picking plums and apricots this week. The quality looks good and I think we were very fortunate with the hail not damaging our fruit as bad as some of our neighbours products. We dried fruit will also start tomorrow.
We had Chrissie's birthday party last night at the tasting room. Sundowners turned out to happen till 10 in the evening in Calitzdorp. Very enjoyable. Stunning evening with great people - what more do you want. Coffee at Handelshuis this morning was a must to get the balance right.
Also worked with Alex Fick on Tuesday morning. Tasting the Shiraz and Port in the barrels. Ficks wine and port is a promising fruit bomb. As it is young wines it over provide in the strawberry, rasberry and plum departments. Very nice drinks. My own products also looks well balanced and complex. The port that turns out to be a fine sample of the ruby style still shows the traditional port flavour complexes with a smooth finish. The Shiraz is a forcefull one. The same block was used in Calitzdorp cellars blend that gold in the SA Young wine show. The vineyard definately is starting to mature. Exciting times

Hope to see you soon in Calitzdorp

2009-10-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Today bottled the Tawny Port. Went well. 297 of the 375ml bottles which would be sold under the Geyser Label the rest of it will go in the Std18 Bottle for Withoek Range.
I had some taste of it and it seem to go down well.

2009-10-12T04:29:00.000-07:00

Will probably bottle Wednesday the Tawny Port. Also the new smaller bottle under the Geyser label. Still busy developing the label. It will be released at the annual Geyser get together in Nylstroom. Looking forward to it.
Also had a visit from the Siyabona in flight magazine's sub editor. She certainly took a liking to the Port Capital, Calitzdorp and plans to return next March / April for a follow up. So be on the look out for some interesting articles of Calitzdorp when you fly SAA again.
If you want to visit Calitzdorp now is probably the best time. Lots of places to stay: Spekboom Cottages a brilliant little place and for the financial more independant Calitzdorp Country Lodge - a real treat.

2009-07-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

Withoek wines is a small cellar in the Little Karoo. The cellar is owned by Koos 'Jack' Geyser, a Bloemfontein based engineer. He started on this project of his in 1996 in partnership with his cousin Koos Geyser who was a farmer in the area.

The first steps was the production of Port style, Cape Ruby, which did very well in local competitions. It got a double gold in the Suid Kaap Markklaar Wynskou and a silver at Veritas. The cousins also tried there hand at other fortifieds namely Hanepoot and Muskadel. In 2000 they decided to try their hand at a dry red. Mostly made of Tinta Barocca, Souzao and Ruby Cabernet. This wine was well received. This wine was barrel matured for 18 months in 3 fill French Oak.

At the moment Withoek range exists out of a Dry Red 03, Tawny Port, Cabernet franc/Shiraz 2007, Soet wyn and Muskadel 2006.

Dry Red 2003
Still made with the same cultivars as the first Withoek Dry Red it continues in the same style. It is spicy. According to Tony Mossop the right partner for a pepperoni pizza. Good value at R20 ex cellar.

Tawny Port
This Tawny Port is the only one with a Wine of Origin Klein Karoo and also shows the rich spices with nice caramel finish so typical of a good Tawny. The colour is still a bit dark but definately shows the necessary tawny colour at the edge. A definate buy at R45 ex cellar.

Cabernet franc / Shiraz 2007
A more classical style of red wine with red berries and smooth finish is a wine to be enjoyed now or over the next 2 years. The coffee flavours of Cabernet franc works well with the spices of the Shiraz. R35 ex cellar - a steal.

Soet wyn
Fortified Muskadel / Hanepoot blend which was oak matured for 1 year. A experiment with this favourite. The alcohol and wine integrated well and is a easy drink for someone looking for something on the sweeter side. R20 ex cellar - nearly at cost.

Muskadel 2006
This wine made by Leanne April was a hit from the go. The muskadel picked at 25 degrees Balling and after the fermentation started fortified. The grapes coming from a small block of Red Muskadel grapes also shows the pinkish colour associated with the Red Muskadels. Also oak matured for 12 months it was one of the first wines made and bottled on the premises. A jewel in the Withoek range a must buy at R45 ex cellar.

As you see most of our wines are very affordable and wines made to enjoy.

Contact us on South Africa 044 21 33639 and or fax 086 628 7853 or email. withoek@telkomsa.net