A little art, a little wine

Having got off my high horse (as per my previous post) and stepped down to street level in Hermanus, I was simply thrilled with what I saw. Hope you get a little thrilled yourself. And then there was our arranged tasting to get our wine-stomping boots into, at Hermanuspietersfontein (well, there’s the Kaalvoet Meisie [barefoot girl] who “kisses the earth with her soles” and the Kleinboet [little brother] who’s “not too big for his boots”). We need to get hold of this marketing guy, he’s priceless.

But first some art, then some wine.

These beautiful, beautiful sculptures in nickel-plated bronze are by South African Louis Chanu, a self-taught sculptor living in Elgin. He initially uses wax to create his sculptures because it’s so malleable. He also melts wax into flat sheets, then cuts out his shapes from that. One sculpture can sometimes take 20 separate moulds! This is then cast in bronze and plated with nickel, giving the sculpture a sheen similar to silver. I’m in love.

And on to Hermanuspietersfontein for some wine …

This is such a witty place. Its emphasis on (and divinely quirky references to) sheep are because Hermanus Pieters, a teacher enlisted by 1800s farmers to teach their children in Dutch, was often paid for his services in sheep. They’d graze at a spring under the milkwood trees, so the place became known as Hermanus Pieters se Fonteyn. The rest is history.

Modern, classy, sheepishly cool. I mean, how can you resist the rosé, Bloos [blush], “the shy girl with long legs and nothing to be shy about”? Or the single-block cabernet franc, Swartskaap [black sheep], whose “name crops up even when he’s not there”. One of our favourites was the sauvignon blanc-semillon, Kat Met Die Houtbeen [cat with the wooden leg], “humbly hobbling along while counting her blessings”.

You’re not going to forget Hermanuspietersfontein so easily.

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