Spirit of collaboration reawakens deferred Solms-Delta dream
No good deed goes unpunished ”— might well serve as the payoff line for the first incarnation of the Solms-Delta project.
The property was inherited by neuroscientist Mark Solms more than two decades ago. He decided to engage with the problematic history of an estate dating back to 1690 and bring the community that worked and lived on the farm into its ownership and management.
He established a museum, which told of the property’s slave-owning past and presented archaeological exhibits that revealed an ancient Khoi settlement. Part of the impetus behind his vision was an attempt to “redress some of the farm’s bitter legacies”.
In his own words, he was naive in thinking that good intentions would produce a viable operation. Despite funds from an overseas investor and land restitution money from the government, Solms-Delta foundered.
By 2018 it had fallen apart, leaving the communities without work. The various upliftment projects that had been an integral part of the venture were shut down. With no revenue to pay wages, the vineyards were abandoned.
This state of affairs might have continued indefinitely were it not for the arrival on the scene of Tommy Hall, an American based in Texas whose day job is in a senior position at a tech company. He saw in Solms’ vision an opportunity to get engaged in the SA wine business in an ethically satisfying way. He has created a new entity, the Solms-Delta Wine Company, a 100% blackowned business with much the same objectives as Solms’ original venture.
It’s not going to be an overnight fix: the money side is easier to address than the state of the farm itself. With no money for maintenance for the past five years, much has deteriorated. If the estate is to be a source of quality wine, it will need a sizeable spend on its production facilities, to go with a not inconsiderable investment to salvage or replant the vineyards.
Getting back into the wine business has obviously been the priority. To this end, Hall and Solms have enlisted the help of Francois Haasbroek to produce Solms-Delta wines using purchased fruit. Haasbroek is one of the Cape’s top winemakers, with a career that spans stints at Dry Creek in Sonoma and Waterford Estate in Stellenbosch. He makes his own range of wines, the fruit selected from interesting sites. I recently reviewed his Palomino produced from a 96-year-old vineyard.
BRIDGE THE GAP
The first releases of these “next generation” wines came to market more or less in time for the year-end trade: they are intended to bridge the gap between the former production of the property and the vision for its future.
At this stage, there are only two wines — both bearing the proprietary names created by Solms at the time of his original launch about 20 years ago. I sampled them both blind and liked them well enough (with a slight preference for the white).
Sold under the name “Amalie”, the white is a blend of Grenache blanc, marsanne and viognier. It has appealing stone fruit aromas, with whiffs of nectarine and hints of white pear. Savoury and textural, it delivers an almost saline freshness, which adds persistence to the finish. The red, called “Hiervandaan”, is a Rhône blend, mainly shiraz, but with dollops of Grenache, cinsault and mourvedre: delicious, accessible red fruit notes, whiffs of bruised raspberries and ample juiciness.
There’s something a little quaint about this: neither “Hiervandaan” nor “Amalie” are brands to conjure with, but they were part of the Solms-Delta story from the outset and are meaningful to Solms and the community on the farm.
The fact that Hall is happy to embrace them, and to chisel a niche for the property in international markets using them, speaks of a spirit of collaboration.
That makes him different from most new owners and it suggests that finally someone at Solms-Delta is willing and able to bring fulfilment to Solms’s long-deferred vision.