Nature’s prism led Yolande to winemaking

• Author: Carolyn Frost
• Published date: 31 August 2022
• Publication title: Bolander

Yolande comes from Pretoria, where her family lived on a large property, and spending time with her outdoors and garden-loving parents, her formative years inculcated in her a love, and reverence, of nature and the intricacies of biology

She describes how enchanted and enthralled she was by the many hidden ‘fairy’ corners of her childhood garden, spending countless blissful hours exploring.

The family moved to the Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth), and then to Cape Town, where she completed high school, before heading to the heartland of all things vinous, to study at Stellenbosch University.

“I didn’t pursue the world of wine initially, but started with the idea of microbiology, before discovering the art of winemaking.

“I always wanted to do something in nature, that’s my passion... I loved being outside, and realised I didn’t want to sit in a lab,” she said.

In 2017, the class of 12 students had an opportunity to take a trip abroad, to Switzerland and Spain (travelling from north to south), a collaboration between the universities of Stellenbosch, Adelaide, and Swiss and American universities... which she describes as life changing.

Yolande worked at De Toren for a while during her studies, but felt that she “needed to know more” – so followed her undergrad with a Masters in Viticulture, specifically on Merlot.

“It was a very complex investigation, starting with the grapes, ending with the wine. I focused on how we reduce the amount of greenness in Merlot, in the South African climate,” she said.

“It’s so difficult with our hot climate, and having a smaller timespan for harvest decisions (versus in Europe, where there’s a much big timespan and window for when and how to harvest). Often we just have a matter of days.

“Because of our high temperatures, sugar spikes (which elevates alcohol), but greenness stays in some red varietals, and we don’t want green pepper aromas in red wine, for example,” she elaborates.

“We need the right amount of sun exposure at the right time, so that grapes don’t turn to raisins.”

To ameliorate this, they can break out leaves of the canopy at a certain time of the growing season, to allow the “green” component to degrade in the berries, while at the same time act like a sunscreen. If you have early sun exposure, the green component degrades, and the berry becomes accustomed to sun, and doesn’t shrivel as quickly with sun exposure,” she says.

Her journey then took her to Guardian Peak, where Danielle le Roux was a big...