Winemakers On Fire, Issue #2

Good day, and a warm welcome!

A huge thank you to those readers who responded to the first issue of the newsletter. I appreciate the interest and I read and reply to every email. Your feedback helps me improve Winemakers On Fire.

Our interview with Creation Wines owner & winemaker JC Martin hit the sweet spot. For JC innovation is a way of life and Creation clearly lives up to its name. Creative thinking and trendsetting solutions have positioned Creation among the Top Ten of the World’s Best Vineyards, and Number One in Africa. Johan Malan (Simonsig) reminded me that his son Michael worked for JC for three years and he considers Creation a great place to learn. You couldn’t ask for a better reference than that!

If you have a tip or story idea you would like to share please email me - I’d love to hear from you!

This week we feature Anton Roos, Viticulturist and Managing Director of Silkbush Mountain Vineyards, and we also chat with Jordan Jelev, a Bulgarian Graphic Designer known fondly as The Labelmaker.

Meet the Winemaker

Silkbush Mountain Vineyards is a multiple award-winning winery situated in South Africa’s Breedekloof Valley, only an hour’s drive from Cape Town. What makes Silkbush special is the quality of its grapes. Silkbush produces 10,000 cases annually of their own branded wines, and in the process grabbing four Double Gold and 19 Gold medals. Their surplus grapes are sold to and prized by several premium and well-known South African wine brands. 

The farm was purchased in February 2000 from the Pepe Valente family from Pretoria. I asked Co-Founder Dave Jefferson to share his story with us:

If you would like to visit Silkbush and explore the Breedekloof Valley, I can recommend staying over at the Kingsbury Cottage Guest House situated on the farm.

Let’s chat with Anton Roos and learn more about his philosophy of winemaking.

How did you get started in wine?

It was a flip of a coin – literally. After studying chemical engineering for a year, and deciding this was not for me, I flipped a coin to choose between Horticulture and Viticulture-and-Oenology. And here we are. Agriculture was always my dream job.

Do you have a degree in winemaking?

Yes - University of Stellenbosch

What has surprised you about being a winemaker?

The unconditional sharing of knowledge between winemakers.

What goals in winemaking are you still working to achieve?

To me, winemaking is about the whole process, from growing the grapes to the end product in the bottle. So to be able to express our vineyard’s specific terroir in the best possible way and finding the perfect harmony between clone, rootstock, terroir, level of ripeness and wine style always remains to be the ultimate goal, and one can always improve on that.

Who do you most admire in the world of South African wine, and why?

Guys like Coenie Snyman, Charles Hopkins, and Bruce Jack. Their attention to detail in every aspect of the winemaking process always amazes me. And the fact that they, like me, acknowledge the major role that terroir and viticulture plays in making a successful wine forms part of their success.

What do you find to be the hardest part of harvest?

Waiting to start the harvest. The excitement and anticipation after a full year’s preparation and having to wait just that 5 days more to hit the sweet spot.

What makes your wine unique?

Very simply our vineyards and mountains. We grow grapes in a very unique and special little corner of the world where we have a climate on par with Constantia and Elgin, a 700-meter elevation and north-northwesterly slopes with shaly granite soils. This combination produces fruit with a high natural acid, an abundance of red and black fruit flavours and a soft and accessible tannin structure, without an alcohol of 15%.

How has climate change impacted your approach?

We have seen more summer rain showers and heatwaves at out-of-the-ordinary times, so we have adjusted canopy management for sensitive cultivars somewhat.

We are very conscious about our carbon footprint and sustainable farming. We’ve just completed the second phase of our solar project, taking Silkbush 100% off the national grid, relying solely on green energy for our electricity needs.

Meet the Designer

Jordan Jelev - The Labelmaker, is a Bulgarian graphic designer specializing in wine labels and packaging design. His work is his passion, devotion, and life philosophy:

We chatted with Jordan Jelev and learned more about his personal design philosophy.

What makes good wine packaging?

Definitely not only one thing. I usually answer that good wine packaging is not just a subject – it is a process of communication.

What I know for nearly 25 years is that every design just like every wine is telling a story. If it is an interesting one there are great chances for the designer to turn it into an appealing and successful design. So storytelling for me is probably one of the most important things and it is somehow related to the chemistry between the designer and the client. All these have their own value and for me are the foundation of all good wine packaging. The designer and the packaging are often an artistic reflection of all these circumstances that surround the whole process.

What do you think makes a good designer?

Skills and talent – yes, this is the necessary foundation for everyone to start with. What is more important for me is the ability of the designer to capture the message behind the wine and convey it to the audience through his work. Last but not least – every designer has his own personality. It is important to implement your own character in your design – this makes it unique and thus you create your own style and signature – this is what makes you a successful designer.

What was your most successful label design?

Ahhh…. Difficult question! It is not only one as my idea for what we call ‘successful’ changes through the years because my experience changes just like the difficulty level of every new work I start. So it could be one design 10 years ago and could be completely another one right now.

How do you approach a new project?

The most important thing is to catch the story and the message. A process where you mostly work with tags and keywords rather than images and visual categories.

The second step is to get to real work trying to find the balance point between the brand and the story, the client’s opinion, and his own creativity and aesthetics.

What wine brands or design projects do you admire most?

I can’t name any certain brands or projects as my eyes are constantly flooded with hundreds of images coming from Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, design sites etc. It is a mess for me unless I start collecting those images and remember them. There are many designs that I like and the number is growing every day – it looks like the world is exploding with interesting designs almost every second.

Above all I have to admit I like Stranger & Stranger very, very much – this is a one–of–a–kind studio that really stands out with every single piece of art they make. I admire all their work because they have successfully traced their own path in W&S design. And they’ve won probably every possible award in the world.

What else do you think we should know about you as a designer or about the way you work?

Maybe for most people, it would be interesting to know that every designer is an artist which means that you are working 24/7. You can’t just go on a vacation, switch off and stop thinking of 3-4 wine labels that are hot at the moment. The good news is that it is not just work, it is more like a hobby or passion that is kind of obsessive, but you feel always positive and full of energy as it brings you joy and satisfaction.

The very good news is that when you are happy, you are ready to challenge new horizons, create amazing designs, develop new skills and thus become stronger to reach new heights.

The higher the better – just have to be careful how we go down.

Villa Vellis Wine Label Design - A Label Where Classics Meets Modernity

Villa Velis is one of the newest wineries in Bulgaria, but I have a very long joint history with them. The beginning of Villa Velis started from the joint project of Velichka and Michael Zehe called Velis Vineyards. This is an exotic and ambitious wine venture, in which the wine itself gets the best of both worlds – grapes grown in Bulgaria and wine made in Germany. Villa Velis is the natural continuation and development of this project, in which the grapes and wine are now grown and made entirely in Bulgaria.

My role in this interesting format has always been related to creating the visual appearance of both the wines themselves and the specific brand. All logos and labels for Velis Vineyards and Villa Velis were made by me at different times. The current project is no exception to this rule – on the contrary, over time, I have become familiar with my clients, gaining experience and success to achieve results I had not thought of before.

The current project for Villa Velis is very special because it combines a classic design with very modern and innovative printing technology. I certainly would not have been able to achieve such a detailed image without the help of my friends from Dagaprint.com. Their skills and technologies are largely at the heart of this label – an example where design is not everything. The moment I started working, I had the goal to create a classic wine label that bears the hallmarks of modern printing technology.

The first important decision was the choice of paper. I selected a very special heavy stock, which is extremely suitable for achieving a strong pronounced relief. I created a detailed frame, which in its deep part flowed smoothly into the silhouette of the building of the winery itself. This motif was strongly debossed in the paper with the help of a special die. In the centre of the composition, we positioned the Villa Velis brand and above it, with the help of a special roof embossing, we stamped the logo of the cellar.

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• Winemakers On Fire is work in progress. For the first few issues, I will be publishing every two weeks until I find my feet. Then weekly. My next issue will be published on the 4th of June and will feature Johan Malan from Simonsig Wine Estate as well as Kelly Bunn, a South African born graphic designer now living and working in the UK.