Grower/Winemaker
VRIESENHOF VINEYARDS
Stellenbosch, South Africa

 The history of South Africa is deep, rich and culturally complex. The Khoisan peoples were the earliest known inhabitants and roamed the land. Bantu-speaking peoples moved to the area from other parts of Africa, displacing or assimilating the Khoisan. Portuguese explorers arrived in 1488, bringing slaves from Malaysia and India. The Dutch were the first to colonize the area, after the Dutch East India Company established an outpost on the Cape in 1652. Jan Coetzee’s ancestors arrived in Table Bay in 1679. They were farmers and bought their first piece of land north of Cape Town, on the road to Namibia, in 1682. The British colonized in 1795, which eventually led to the Great Trek of 1836, when thousands of Boer families migrated into the interior.

More than two centuries after his ancestors arrived, Johannes Hermanus Hugo Coetzee was born, in 1945. He grew up in the same bucolic rural landscape they had settled in, known as the Boland region. His family moved to a fishing village on the coast, but Jan spent as much time as he could with his grandfather back on the farm, where his affinity for nature was established. His “Boland” nickname came later, after playing rugby at Boland High School. It has been impossible to separate rugby from Jan’s story ever since.

In 1963 Jan began studying at Stellenbosch University, where he played for their team, the Maties. He graduated in 1967 with a degree in enology and was promptly hired by Kanonkop, a cooperative making bulk wine in Stellenbosch. Jan also played rugby for Western Province from 1967 to 1979. He would begin his weekdays at 4:00 a.m., work until 4:00 p.m., practice with the team until 7:00, return to the winery to work a little more, and was finally asleep by 10:00. He competed on the weekends. Even when he stopped playing, he coached. Jan’s physical strength and strategic mind gave him the ability to tackle the demands of his life’s choices.

Jan played with South Africa’s national team, the Springboks, from 1974 to 1976. Playing for the national team gave Jan exposure to the world, particularly France, which captured his winemaking heart. Jan moved his young family to Burgundy for a short time in the early 1980s, where he worked at the renowned wine estate of Joseph Drouhin and fell in love with French varieties. The grapes grown in South Africa were limited, so Jan carried cuttings from France (hidden in his son’s nappies, in chocolate boxes and in his wife’s purse). Later, making his Vriesenhof wines, he would source foudres and barriques for his cellar, host enology students from universities in France and enjoy ongoing relationships with fellow vignerons.

Jan had only been at Kanonkop winery for one year when one of the owners passed away and Jan was left in charge of the vineyards, winery and 70 workers. It was a big task for a young winemaker, but as Jan says, in both rugby and winemaking “you can’t achieve anything without hard work and discipline.” Jan formed a strategy and focused on success, just like he did on the field. Years passed, and then came the vintage of 1973 when Kanonkop began bottling their own wines. Jan remembers it perfectly.  The Cabernet was so good, he just let the grapes lie on their skins in tank 11 to do their thing. When fermenting was complete, he tasted the wine and knew that if there ever was a time to start bottling their own wines, this was it! Almost half a century later the 1973 Kanonkop Cabernet Sauvignon is still lively, without any of the usual characteristics of age.

Jan had always wanted to live and work alongside the purple ridges of the Stellenbosch Mountains. In 1980 he bought Vriesenhof Farm, an 85-hectare (210-acre) property in the Paradyskloof Valley, and knew he had found his home. Its south-facing vineyards climbed the hillsides, rooted in decomposed granite and Malmesbury shale. The afternoon sun was balanced by cool breezes from False Bay that provided respite to the Cabernet, Cinsault and Pinotage vines already planted there. Jan later planted his cuttings from France (Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Franc). When he mastered those, he planted Pinot Noir and eventually Grenache and Syrah as well.

According to the Vriesenhof website, Jan is the cellar master, but when I reminded him of that, he laughed and said he feels more like “the everything.” There is no job on the farm he has not done. As for his winemaking philosophy, he ignores trends and lets the wines express the land which formed them. For Jan, the only variation should be whatever nature defines for the vintage. He is clear: “The only part of a great wine that should receive praise is nature.” He is most certainly connected to the cellar, but his favorite parts of the day are spent outside in the vineyards, listening and learning from them. As we drove around his estate, he shared stories about the mountains, the vines, weather, past vintages, whatever came to mind. Then he stopped talking, as if a deeper part of him had left the car and joined the landscape. He said, “Great wine is like music,” fluid, beautiful and always infused with a sense of spirit emerging from its source—the vineyard.  

Jan is adamant that everyone must do their part to cope with the challenges we face. Climate change impacts all of agriculture, not just wine. Vriesenhof Vineyards has a natural reservoir, but they also recycle their water. They use cover crops to help the soil retain whatever moisture it gathers, to provide protection from the sun and to biodegrade into nourishment. In addition, Jan promotes attentive observation and contemplation of the changes in the vineyard. He believes intensive study into the movement of air and its effect on light and photosynthesis could result in ways to alter the timing of harvest by ten days or more.

In a 2016 issue of Journal of Wine Economics, Jan submitted the following observations: “I cut my teeth in this business with the knowledge that the afternoon sun was the hottest and the morning sun was benign, but now I suspect that the intensity of the sun’s rays is increasing. This is why vineyards in Stellenbosch tend to be on the southern slopes where many also have the benefit of the cooling sea breezes. However, we started noticing awhile ago that even the vines on the southern slopes were getting too much exposure to the sun. One of the solutions was more effective canopy management, training the vines vertically to a greater height than before, and then taking them horizontally in order to ensure that the fruit zone was in the shade when this was possible.… I can keep the temperature in the vicinity of the grape bunches at 24 °C [75 °F] even on very hot days.”

Jan is keenly aware of the passage of time and feels fortunate to have spent so much of his in the company of his vines. He has the respect of his peers and an honorary doctorate of agricultural science from Stellenbosch University, and in 2020 he received the 1659 Medal of Honour* from the South African wine industry for his contributions to the elevation of wines from the Cape. Jan also continues to be a celebrated figure in South African rugby. But his work is not done. He will never stop thinking, learning and putting the vast library of his mind to good use. For him, there will always be something more to know. As long as his grapes feel at home in the land, they will continue to tell him stories and he will continue to listen.  

*Named for the year the first vintage of Muscadel was harvested and made into wine by the Dutch East India Company.

Vreisenhof Vineyards