Decanter
hall of fame 2022
The fourth woman in 38 years to be inducted into the «Decanter Hall of Fame» by Decanter magazine.
Our 2022 Decanter Hall of Fame award winner's enthusiasm for South Africa's old vines is deeply rooted in the country's heritage and her own. This self-proclaimed "farm manager's" dedication to her cause is a role model for the entire wine world.
Rosa Kruger grew up on a farm in the northern Transvaal, surrounded by nature and the dangerous immensity of the veldt. Since she was five years old, she would regularly pack a bag with food and water and set off into the wilderness without shoes with one or more of her five siblings. "We'd come back after dark, to bathe, sleep or hide," she says. We were quite wild.
It's an instructive story that illustrates several things about her. Kruger is strong, intellectually independent, and loves to travel. In short, she was never destined for a desk job, although she worked as a journalist until her mid-30s and then as a lawyer. Instead, she has become one of the world's leading viticulturists, even though she prefers the term "farm manager."
Kruger was also a key figure in the development of the post-apartheid South African wine scene, advocating for good working practices, assisting a local nursery in importing new European grape varieties such as Assyrtiko and Garnacha Peluda, and helping young winemakers find special vineyards. And then there is her work of tracking down, preserving, nurturing, and promoting the Cape's valuable old vines.
"Why me? There are many people who deserve it more," was her humble response when she learned she had been selected for this year's Decanter Hall of Fame Award. But the woman once called "the warrior queen of South Africa's modern wine transformation" by local wine writer John Platter is a deserving choice. She is the first winemaker (or farm manager) to be so honored, and also the first South African.
The major South African wine producers, as well as the wine society and the South African population, have not stopped celebrating this award on their social networks.
About Rosa Kruger
This is not the first time Rosa Kruger has received such an award.
Kruger is 57 years old and the great-great-granddaughter of Paul Kruger. "I come from a family of lawyers and farmers," she said in an interview five years ago with the Old Vine Project, when she was honored as the winner of the Old Vine Awards in South Africa.
She holds an M.A. in Communication and an LL.B. These qualifications may seem a little irrelevant to the tough business of coaxing the juice from the often unyielding soils of the Winelands. But Rosa has clear ideas about the relationship between the organic, complex quality of nature and the intellectual challenge of viticulture.
Photo: oldvineproject.co.za
Rosa gained experience at Rupert Wines, Rupert and Rothschild, Cape Point Vineyards, and worked with Eben Sadie and in various wineries in France, Spain, Italy, Argentina, and Slovakia.
She too left a South Africa where she felt uncomfortable, married and had a son, but returned in time for "that glorious day" when Mandela was released. She then qualified as a lawyer, but didn't want her son, who had grown up on a farm, to become a city child. "Coincidentally, someone invited me to work on a farm near Elgin [one of South Africa's new, cool wine regions] in 1997/8 - at a tenth of my previous income. We lived in a biosphere surrounded only by forest," she recounts.
But the beginnings were not easy. "The two top scientists at Stellenbosch University felt sorry for me. I gave them food and wine, and in return they taught me," Kruger said in that interview for the Old Vine Project. Somehow, she was asked to look after the vines on some wineries - Uva Mira in Stellenbosch and Cape Point, whose wines have since received great acclaim.
Today, Rosa Kruger is one of the most renowned winemakers in the world. At the Masters of Wine seminar on old vines, which recently took her to London, she repeatedly emphasized:
«I don't like to talk about wines, only about vines»
And said so often "I love viticulture" that it was hard to believe her. "I do a lot of hands-on, physical work. Working in the heat, with sweat running down your nose and back, is hard. But I work very closely with the workers, which I really appreciate. Working conditions and politics have definitely improved."
She is a woman who is not afraid of adversity and hard work. "What makes me happy is working in the vineyard, and I want to get even more involved in the training of farm workers. In the first year we made a Sauvignon Blanc in Elgin, I sat all the farm workers at a table and had them taste it. They were a bit bewildered, but I asked them what they tasted and smelled. One of them, who used to be an apple farmer, said: This wine smells like the grass between the apple trees when I mow it in the early morning." She beamed.
Today she is considered the "Queen" of the Old Vines.
Edition by Tim Atkin for «Decanter» , from 03.10.22
