These trees are carrying a load of luscious, sweet-ripe naartjies. They were planted  30 years ago and contributed their share of income to the family fortune. Back then, most Cape farms had a mixed base of production, with fruit crops supplementing vineyards. Around Stellenbosch, many of today’s top estates grew tobacco as a cash generator.

What’s a naartjie? Its the Afrikaans name for Mandarins or Easy-Peelers. Like most things on Stormhoek, they ripen two or three weeks later than on other properties, so they don’t generate income any more. The markets are full, when our naartjies are sweet. The kids from the neighbouring farms spend their afternoons in our back yard, gorging.

If you’re wondering how some wines get paper medals stuck on them, this is what they have to go through to get selected. The South African Wine Show started yesterday and finishes today. Thousands of wines are tasted by hundreds of professionals, mostly winemakers.

A sample of each wine is poured by volunteer helpers into glasses, one for every taster in the panel. The glasses are marked by codes for identification

Each taster sits in a single booth and tastes ten wines in a flight. They learn the variety and vintage. The glasses have code numbers to record the score.

South Africa has at least a dozen shows like this. Most are commercial ventures, selling the ‘bling’ and other rewards that accompany the trophies. Every country has multiple awards wine shows. And then there are the big international ones, like the Wine Challenge and the International Wines and Spirits Exhibition in London.

Laylan is one of the volunteers who bring ten new wines to each taster and take the previous lot away. Frans Smit, who can be seen taking his chair in the background is Spier’s head winemaker and a celebrated ‘bling’ winner.

Wines shows are a little industry that grace the neck of the wine trade, because they help sell wine. It is driven by the fact that none of us can tell whether a bottle of wine is good value unless someone tells us it is, or we take the chance, buy and evaluate it. Naturally, it’s cheaper to read the medal than buy all of the bottles. Wine shops will tell you that bottles with ‘bling’ sell better than bottles without. Even unknown labels outsell known labels, when they have something that looks like a medal on the bottle. There’s nothing wrong with the idea. It’s just a pity that not every good wine gets to the show. And among those that do, not every top wine gets a trophy, or even a medal. Wines and tasters’ mouths are different every day.

Winter vine (Red Semillon)

As you may have noticed, there have not been many vine posts recently. Being mid winter we are busy with other things – like cutting down trees. Once the pruning is done we move over to the more or less mundane tasks of getting the farm tidied up. Irrigation pipes are fixed, pumps are checked, encroaching vegetation is cleared, tractors are serviced etc. Life may be quieter than during harvest, but no less busy.July is one of the quietest months for sales in South Africa and so our team are out there knocking on doors and making new customers and friends for Stormhoek.We also use this time to investigate and design new products.  It never stops even when the vines do.

Radiata pine trees were planted here decades ago, as windbreaks against the stormy impact of summers’ southeasters. We’ve started cutting them down as part of the alien vegetation removal. These big trees don’t have their desired effect on the wind anymore, as it powers through the gaps below the branches. This line of mature trees is along the road at the top of the Middlehead Viognier  vineyard block. It may be interesting to know that there were no tall trees here before the settlers brought the pines and gums. It’s probably due to the velocity of the winds. So Stormhoek is going to look different when the pines have gone. Some of them are over 200ft high.

Stormhoek is a member of the Winelands Biodiversity Initiative, yet we still have a lot of alien trees. Besides the pines that flank the vineyards there are many thousands of wattles, gums and particularly pines on the Groenberg Hill, where no cultivation has ever taken place. These have arrived on the hill via aerial routes from neighbouring forests.

We are embarking on two new major projects. Replacing exotic vegetation is one. The restoration of the Berg River Whitefish into our waters is the other.

After the old windbreak pines have gone, we will start on the Groenberg hill, where the majority of the problem growth is on slopes of 60 degrees and more.

We’ll start from the bottom and work up. I picked up somewhere that this is a good business principle.  

The damage to this tree was probably done by a male. But not a man, not this time. The highest point of the ring-barking is less than a metre. There are a couple of trees at the top of the Stormhoek section of the Groenberg that have suffered like this just by being in the wrong place. Can anyone tell me what was probably responsible?

All I can say is that this spot is about 360 metres above sea level in as inaccessible place on earth there can be that is less than 800m from a road. There are no signs of human activity in at least the last 400 years on this hill, on the steeply sloping base or the gentle curve of the crest. No footpaths or tracks. No tractor or horse or bike has ever been here. The proteas around this area grow closely, like grass on a lawn, and provide a barrier to an erect human being.

There is however a wide ranging network of tunnel-like apertures about 60cm wide at ground level and about 1m high that leads all over this hill and probably over the whole mountain. Who travels these roads?

It might have been fun to see me trying to find my way home on my knees, going steeply downhill. But I didn’t see anyone, or any thing. Except the bird life travelling their aerial routes in the trees above. And they seemed to take no notice.

Would you buy wine from this guy and pay him?

I consult to the financial services industry when not selling wine. One of the never die debates is when does the sales process end.

The real answer is that it never does. Any really successful salesperson will tell you that sales is inextricably linked to service and the two are partners for life.

In retail, the implications of drawing the line between sales and accounts too early often relieves the salesperson from the more mundane – yet far more important – task of insuring that invoices are settled and repeat visits are made.

In financial services an early policy termination – with a statute of limitations of course – results in commission being withdrawn or "clawed back" (an awful term – picture the stereotypical gray suit, pointy nosed chap reaching across the desk…). But in retail this is often a gray area. Once the sale is made, a logistics person delivers the product and accounts invoice the client. So at whose door does the unpaid invoice lie?

Generally the answer from the salesperson is: "Not mine." The accountants are left to tidy up – by which time it is probably too late because a new owner just bought the restaurant.

It is interesting to note that even in a small team like ours it is possible for stuff to fall in the cracks – albeit briefly – as it is in much bigger distribution operations. Smaller teams find it difficult to clearly define roles, while bigger teams all too clearly define the boundaries and create huge voids for all important service tasks to fall into.

Do you feel a twinge of guilt yet?

From our previous experiences in getting product to market in the US – where there are layers and layers of distribution – it is clear that you need to control the end to end process as tightly as humanly possible.

At the opening of the Dirty Hands course Graham said that "Wine making is about shifting units [and getting paid]". The process of making wine is scientific and creative (to a degree with labelling etc.), the process of shifting units is a process of relationships and that includes getting the money for the deal done. It is easy to make great wine (relatively – given enough cash), but it is difficult to sell it. End of story.