Upington, Northern Cape - There is something about a good brandy that – just as herbs and spices enhance the flavour of food – adds wonderful zest to a story.
“Martiens” Bezuidenhout is a fourth-generation son of the soil on the farm Dyasonsklip, home to Bezalel wines and brandies, between Upington and Keimoes. He’s actually Marthinus Edward Johannes Bezuidenhout, “just like my father and great-grandfather” – and they’re one of a very small handful of families making brandies on the floodplains of the Orange River. He’s head of marketing while older brother Jan-Adriaan is in charge of the cellars.
We’re leaning on a rickety fence that prevents animals and people falling into a steeply-sided canal that irrigates the vineyards, looking at a pretty ordinary outcrop of lichen-covered rocks.
All sound is of rushing water, the odd shrill birdcall and an incessant buzz of buzzes.
Martiens breaks the silence to inform us that those rocks proved the comeuppance for a British officer who wasn’t quite as smart as he thought he was.
“Back in 1878, there was a tribe called the Korana in this area. Together with the Griquas and a number of other tribes, they rebelled against the government of the Cape Colony.”
On April 10 the following year, the Battle of Dyasonsklip took place. “One of the soldiers sent north to put down the rebellion was a General Dyason,” says Martiens, “and his forces managed to drive a group of Korana into those rocks.
“Because it was an almost impregnable position, he decided to starve them out.”
After a week of waiting, no signs of life were observed and, true to British military ethic, Dyason stood up to lead the final assault. The only surviving Korana put his last bullet through Dyason’s head.
Of course, folly is rarely limited to one side during war: that same day, on what would come to be called Cannon Island, a rebel chief who had previously been extremely impressed by the British artillery decided he needed a cannon of his own. “He ordered his men to hollow out a palm tree, fill it with cordite and stones, point it at the British forces on the opposing riverbank and touch off the fuse.
“Well,” says Martien, “he basically wiped out his own force. But legend has it that, when the dust settled, he looked around at the survivors and said: ‘If it looks so bad here, think how bad it looks over there among the British!’”
The plains at Bezalel – Dyasonsklip is only a section of land that makes up the estate – are free from strife and covered by various orchards and vineyards of over a dozen cultivars. It was a subsequent war, though, that brought first the art of distillation and later viniculture to the Northern Cape.
“This area is well-known for the Keimoes mampoer that has been made from Kakamas peaches for over a century, though few people are aware of the role the NG Kerk played in establishing the industry.
“Many farmers found themselves dispossessed of their lands when they returned from the Anglo-Boer war but were given land grants around Kakamas by the church, provided they helped develop the agricultural infrastructure by building irrigation canals and the like.”
The church apparently turned a blind eye to the farmers distilling their peach-based moonshine … provided they didn’t do it on actual church land.
So the farmers travelled to the Keimoes area where the land was not consecrated and their friends had set up a number of stills.
“That’s when my great-grandfather got started in this business,” reveals Martiens.
Skip a generation to the second MEJ Bezuidenhout, Martiens’ father.
“My dad studied winemaking at Stellenbosch University before doing his practical with Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery in the 1980s. It was then that he first encountered brandy-making and acquired a love for it.
“The table-grape industry was booming around here at this time so my father decided he also wanted to produce wine. There were a lot of people who thought he was crazy because they said the climate was too hot.
“My dad disagreed. He was adamant that the micro-climate of the Orange River floodplains would be perfect for creating wines of character because they were low-lying and the vines would collect a lot of dew in the mornings, keeping the grapes cool for much of the day if they were carefully tended.”
Twenty-something years later, Bezalel (the name is a derivative of the Hebrew biblical name that means “in the protection of God”, rather than a corruption of the Bezuidenhout name) produces an estate colombard as well as sangiovese, a fortified Kalahari vintage, a VSOP Pure Alambic brandy and Founder’s Reserve XO Fine Potstill brandy.
Among the liqueurs and infusions is a brandy-based date liqueur that’s heavenly when poured over malva pudding and the Inferno, a spicy Cayenne pepper and cinnamon shooter.
Shooters on Dyasonsklip? That’s honouring your history!
Jim Freeman, Saturday Star