Stories From the Cellar Vine Street Imports

This episode is the second half of our conversation with Johan Meyer (also known as Stompie) from Mother Rock and J.H. Meyer Signature Wines based in the Swartland, South Africa. Here, we dive into his wines and why the Cape needs to diversify beyond old vine Chenin Blanc. We also talk about the new wine of origin appellation called Picket-bo-berg that he’s created at his home estate on top of the Piketberg Mountain. Plus, we end with the story of why Stompie is called Stompie. We’ll pick up our conversation where we left off, talking about how Chenin Blanc allows him a little bit more creativity than Chardonnay, and why this desire to make something outside the box led him to become South Africa’s first producer to receive the special invite to the ‘Brutal!’ club of winemakers, a label that is very much a part of the global natural wine movement today. 
 
Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi.
Special thanks to SNACKTIME for the music! 
Vine Street Imports Instagram  |  Website 

Today's episode is with Johan Meyer (also known as Stompie) from Mother Rock and J.H. Meyer Signature Wines based in the Swartland, South Africa. If you’re privy to the natural wine scene in the Cape, you’ll know these labels without a doubt. I often hear people say that there are three guys that really put natural wine on the map in South Africa and that is Johan Meyer, Jurgen Gouws of Intellego (there’s an episode with him a few back) and Craig Hawkins of Lammershoek and Testalonga.
In this episode, you’ll hear how Stompie got into natural wine, and how it wasn’t always what he did. At the beginning, he was working for a big commercial winery called Sutter Home – you might have heard of it – out in California. After another stint at a smaller winery in New Zealand, plus a transformative experience at Matassa in Southern France – a natural wine project started by Tom Lubbe, a New Zealander who grew up in South Africa South – Stompie returned home determined to do his own thing. He shares how the Swartland Revolution which took place around 2010 helped pave the way for newcomers like himself, and how at that time, there was a huge gap in the market for affordable natural wine made at scale. Enter: Mother Rock Wines. 
That is all part 1 of my conversation with Stompie. In Part 2, we talk more about the wines, including his 'Brutal!' series, which is a natural wine “club” of sorts, to which Stompie was the first South African producer ever invited. You’ll also hear about the new wine of origin appellation that he has established at his high elevation home on the Piketberg Mountain, about two and a half hours north of Cape Town. Plus, stick around for the end of part 2 where you’ll hear why Stompie is called Stompie.
To begin the story, we need to go all the way back to Stompie’s childhood in the Garden Route, where the dominant type of farming was not of grapes, but of cows...
 
 
Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi.
Special thanks to SNACKTIME for the music! 
Vine Street Imports Instagram  |  Website 
  

This episode is a compilation of interviews with the Cowley brothers: Ben, the viticulturist, and Luc, the winemaker.
For some excellent context on Ben’s backstory, go back and listen to the episode just before this one. It tells the story of how he made the switch from the film industry to wine, and how, at the beginning when he moved from Auckland to his parents' new Auntsfield estate, he was living in a primitive woolshed on the property that still had the slats for manure to fall through while the sheep were being sheared. You’ll also hear about Ben’s thoughts on how Marlborough became synonymous with Sauvignon Blanc, and his take on new wave New Zealand.
Today, we’re diving into the place and the wines. You'll hear about the history of Auntsfield as Marlborough's first commercial winery. You'll hear what makes the Southern Valleys particularly well suited to Pinot Noir, and why it makes less herbaceous styles of Sauvignon Blanc. And you'll hear about the new Appellation Marlborough map that is the first of its kind to highlight the subregional differences in Marlborough. 
This is an excellent episode if you're curious about the climate, soils, and history of Marlborough! 
 
Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi.
Special thanks to SNACKTIME for the music! 
Vine Street Imports Instagram  |  Website 

Today's episode is with Ben Cowley, the viticulturist at Auntsfield Estate based in the southern valleys of Marlborough, New Zealand. Auntsfield is unique in Marlborough for two main reasons. First, they put a heavy focus on their Pinot Noir production in an industry that is almost entirely focused on Sauvignon Blanc. Unlike many Marlborough vineyards, Pinot Noir makes up half of Auntsfield’s vineyard area, as it’s particularly well suited to the old clay hillsides found there. Second, Auntsfield was the first commercial winery to be established in Marlborough in the late 1800s. A Scottish immigrant named David Herd planted his first vines in 1873 at a time when most agricultural work had to do with sheep, not wine.
As you’ll hear Ben explain, wine was made at Auntsfield until the 1930s when prohibition kicked in and the vineyard closed. Fast forward about 70 years, and Ben’s parents Graeme and Linda bought the property and restored the wine estate with the help of their sons, Ben, the viticulturist, and Luc, the winemaker. Before getting into wine, Graeme and Linda were movers and shakers in the New Zealand film industry, having been the first people to rent motion picture cameras, which kick started the independent filmmaker movement. Ben followed in their footsteps and was working in the film industry in Auckland before his second career in wine. As you’ll hear, an unsteady freelance paycheck and a newborn baby got Ben and his wife thinking about their futures, and then a house break in was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They packed up their car and headed to the south island on the fateful day of September 11th, 2001.
In this episode, you’ll hear all of those stories, plus we’ll get into New Zealand's wine scene – the challenges, the cool stuff happening, and the balance between old-school and next-gen. We talk about why the Cowleys are so passionate about Pinot Noir, and why Marlborough became synonymous with Sauvignon Blanc. For a deeper dive into the wines and the site, check out the episode just after this one with both Ben and Luc. But first, the story of Auntsfield as told by Ben, who could never have imagined such a dramatic switch from film to wine...
 
Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi.
Special thanks to SNACKTIME for the music! 
Vine Street Imports Instagram  |  Website 
 

This is the second half of ourconversation with Louis Schofield from Worlds Apart Wines. Part 1 is integral for understanding who Louis is thanks to the mentors, especially Taras Ochota, who helped shape his winemaking identity today. You should really start there if you haven’t listened already. In this episode, we go into more depth with Louis’ Worlds Apart wines. We cover the extraordinary places that they come from, why Louis believes that “in South Australia, the path to Burgundian style winemaking is not paved with Pinot but with Grenach,” as well as his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities present within the Australian wine industry today. 
To jump back in, we’ll start with the meaning behind the name, Worlds Apart.
 
Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi.
Special thanks to SNACKTIME for the music! 
Vine Street Imports Instagram  |  Website 

Today's episod is with Louis Schofield from Worlds Apart Wines based in Adelaide Hills, Australia. Louis is a jack-of-all trades wine industry legend who spent a decade working in fine wine retail and dining, including at the acclaimed Orana and East End Cellars. He was content in that world, until he met one of his biggest mentors, the late Taras Ochota of Ochota Barrels. Taras was a mover and shaker who is widely credited as having been the impetus behind South Australia’s new wave. His style can be summed up as punk, boundary-pushing, minimalist, small-batch wines. Or, as Taras puts it, “I reckon you can often see the styles of music people like in the wines they make. I like edgy music, rawer, sharper, and my wines tend to be all elbows and knees sticking out." 
Louis met Taras when he was working at East End Cellars, and he was was quick to accept when a friend alerted him that Taras was looking for harvest workers. Seven years later, Louis is still an integral part of the Ochota Barrels production, helping Taras’ wife Amber in the cellar after Taras’ tragic passing in 2020.
At first, Louis was reticent about starting his own label. “There were enough people making shit wine without me doing it too,” he told me. But with a bit of a nudge from Taras, Louis and his now wife, Hannah, co-founded Worlds Apart in 2017. Their wines could technically be called natural, with no additives but minimal sulfur, but they avoid rigid dogma and focus on crafting wines that are pure, vibrant, and most importantly, speak of place. They source grapes from all over South Australia, notably McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, and Eden Valley. You’re going to find verve and energy in Louis wines, a bit of texture in the whites, and lacy tannins in the focused reds. 
In this episode, which is part one of two, Louis and I talk about his experiences at Orana, East End Cellars, Ochota Barrels, and even that time he did a harvest in Arizona with Maynard James Keenan from Tool. We talk a lot about Taras, and the impact he and Amber continue to have on Louis’ wine identity. There are some really special memories that Louis shares in here, and having never met Taras myself, I feel really lucky to have gotten to hear firsthand from someone who knew him so well.
In part two, we talk a little bit more about Louis wines, and the extraordinary places that they come from, why Louis believes that “in South Australia, the path to Burgundian style winemaking is not paved with Pinot, it's paved with Grenach,” as well as his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities present within the Australian wine industry today.
To start our conversation, we begin with how Louis got into winemaking in the first place. It was a circuitous route, starting with a job in music, and briefly, shed engineering…
 
Hosted by Charlotte Alsaadi.
Special thanks to SNACKTIME for the intro music! 
Vine Street Imports Instagram  |  Website