Exclusive to The Wine Society

God’s Own Country II

Rick says: ‘Eyup. This should go down well with Society members in Yorkshire…’ (Perhaps less so with those in Lancashire…).

Yorkshire prides itself on its straight-talking northern-ness. Four famous Yorkshiremen, Fred Trueman, Alan Bennett, Brian Clough, Sir Geoffrey Boycot sat together in a room could well have been the inspiration for a certain classic comedy sketch…

Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chassilier wine, ay, Sir Geoffrey?
Who’d a thought forty year- ago we’d all be sittin’ here drinking Château de Chassilier?
Aye. In them days, we’d a’ been glad to have the price of a cup o’ tea.
A cup ‘ COLD tea.
Without milk or sugar.
OR tea!

Less well known Yorkshiremen might include James Henry Atkinson (1849-1942), inventor of the mousetrap, or Percy Shaw (1889-1975) the designer behind ‘cat’s eyes’. Or possibly Frederick David Johnson, a staunch, conservative Yorkshireman who, after the Second World War took out a coin and flipped it. One side meant emigrate to Canada. The reverse to South Africa. Canada came second.

He travelled from Horbury Bridge, with wife and a young son in tow, to Cape Town, where, on arrival he worked as a fitter and turner.  This was an unlikely act, given his character, but apparently true and the younger generation are indebted to this coin.

That young son, Dave, began a path into wine in Natal in the late 1970s, when he became chairman of the Durban Wine Society. This led to a career change, taking up a position with Stellenbosch Farmers Winery and the family relocated to the Cape Winelands in 1982. By 1986, he had become of one the first to qualify as a Cape Wine Master and, by 1989, he was running his own successful wine export business.

Dave, along with his wife, Felicity (nee Newton) moved to the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde (Heaven and Earth) Valley in the mid-1990s.  The first Newton Johnson wines were released from the 1997 vintage. By 1999, both sons, Bevan and Gordon had joined the family business and together they bought a neglected forty-hectare protea farm in the valley and started to plant their own vineyards in 2003.

So, what might well have been a ‘good glass of Château de Chassilier’ forty years ago, has now evolved into a rather splendid Grenache, Syrah blend with just a slart of Mourvèdre from the Hemel-en-Aarde.

God’s Own Country, indeed…

Rick says: ‘Now then. Stop bletherin’ an’ gawpin. Fetch thi coat we are away down t’Society for an apeth o’ red for sossing an’ a suppin’. It’s summat ti slake thi thorst an’, if thus brazen, thou’ll grab us yan anall ‘cos when it’s owerd, thou’ll be all mardy an’ chunterin’…’

YORKSHIRE DICTIONARY:

Now then: the obligatory starter to any conversation
Anall: Me too / as well…
Apeth: Halfpenny’s worth
Blether: Talk nonsense
Brazen: Clever
Chunter: Mutter
Eyup!: Hello…
Gawpin: To stare
Mardy: Miserable
Soss: Sip
Summat: Something
Sup: To drink

.