Rosa Kruger

South Africa’s most famous viticulturist tells Tim Atkin MW of her uncompromising working style and her unshakeable belief in the Cape’s unique terroirs

ThE AiR iNSiDE Rosa Kruger’s 4x4 is turning blue with expletives. Somehow the swear words sound even more forceful in Afrikaans, spat at the windscreen in disgust. This is road rage, South African style, and the country’s most famous viticulturist is visibly shaking with anger.

‘Fok, man,’ she says, pointing to a pile of deracinated vines by the side of the road in Piekenierskloof. ‘They’ve pulled out one of the oldest Palomino vineyards in the Cape to plant citrus trees. it was on its own roots too. how can they do that to something so beautiful?’

Listening to Kruger, you fear for the farmer who committed such an act of vandalism. This passionate, determined, obsessive woman is perfectly capable of punching someone three times her size. She’s been mugged twice in her life (once by an intruder wielding a machete) and on both occasions fought back and won.

Maybe the feistiness is inherited. Kruger is the great, great granddaughter of Paul Kruger, the 19th-century president of the South African Republic who survived the Great Trek as a child and took on the British Empire in the Boer War. ‘i’m small,’ she says, ‘but i’m a very strong person. i’m not afraid of anything.’

Seeds of success

The woman called ‘Mevrou’ (madam) by vineyard workers was brought up on a farm in the Northern Transvaal, the second youngest of six children, and retains a visceral attachment to the veld. ‘if i see a beautiful mountain, i want to walk over it,’ she says.

With only her dogs for company, Kruger loves to go hiking for days on end, sleeping rough under clear, open skies. ‘Doing what i do is the perfect job for me,’ she says. ‘i relish the solitude, the space and the chance to work with nature.’

Kruger’s career path didn’t start out like that, mind you. her first job was as a political journalist on Die Beeld, a Johannesburg newspaper. But after five years she’d had enough of the Fourth Estate and decided to go travelling for six months instead. Once back in South Africa, Kruger studied to be a lawyer, but never completed her formal training. She had a young child and, as a single mother, decided that she wanted to bring him up in the countryside rather than a city. it was time to follow the example of two of her brothers and become a farmer instead.

For a year, Kruger managed an apple orchard at iona in Elgin. When a neighbour suggested that the cool site would also be ideal for planting grapes, she decided to give it a go. With characteristic chutzpah, she got in touch with Eben Archer, professor of viticulture at Stellenbosch University, and asked to meet him. in an attempt to put her off, Archer told her to come to his office at 7am; Kruger was there at 6.45am. With the help of Archer, fellow academic and soil scientist Dawid Saayman, and Neil Rossouw at Vergelegen, she started to learn about viticulture, using her journalistic training to ask question after question. her unofficial mentors taught her ‘80% of what i know’.

iona’s first release was a 2000 Sauvignon Blanc and established the farm as one of the best producers of the variety in the Cape. But Kruger’s feet were itching again. She left in 2003 to go to Uva Mira in Stellenbosch, then across to Cape Point south of Cape Town, then back inland to L’Ormarins in Franschhoek, where she worked for Johann Rupert for