Where the Mountains Meet… | Keermont Vineyards | Rooted

“I’ve got one foot on one mountain and one foot on the other - proper Soutie*” - Alex Starey, winemaker at Keermont Vineyards.

Alex’s father used to farm in the Blaauwklippen Valley, on a farm that has since been divided up into Dornier, Waterford, Kleinood, and a few other smallholdings. Alex grew up here, driving a Massey-Ferguson tractor at the age of eight, and deciding to become a farmer in high school. His father farmed with livestock, plums, citrus fruit, and wine grapes and I suppose the IDEA of wine, was planted (as he is) right here. In a sense, Alex was uniquely pedigreed to farm the Upper Blaauwklippen Valley, where the Stellenbosch Mountain and Helderberg meet, on a farm that was originally part of Mont Fleur (David Trafford’s farm) and earmarked as a water bottling plant (though quickly abandoned due to incorrect zoning). Keermont is situated halfway up the valley, the name a contraction of the original farm names ‘Keerweerder’ and ‘Mont Fleur’. The Roux family who farmed this valley for several generations from the 1600s speculate that there are two possible interpretations of the historic farm name ‘Keerweerder’, either meaning “Weer Gekeer”/ “Stopped Again” in reference to the valley not offering access inland, or Dutch meaning “Come Again”. The former possibly more viable given the inaccessibility of the Upper Blaauwklippen Valley - with the Blou Klip River running right through it, the steep slopes to either side, and the forbidding wind that yearly causes havoc as it forms an almost perfect wind tunnel between the two mountains - this is a forbidding place. And yet, when I ask Alex what it’s like to live here he says: “Can I say Paradise?” 

DOP: Michael Ellis Edited by: Kleinjan Groenewald

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