King of Cool
07 July 2003 by Peter May
(With thanks to The Pinotage Club)

Bruce Jack of Flagstone Winery

Bruce Jack rises from his desk to greet me. His office is a bare corner on bare concrete in a 100-year-old abandoned building. Wires tumble from computers across the floor. Above the desk a welder is working twenty feet up the wall, bright sparks cascading down.
Flagstone Wines new home, its fourth in as many years, is an old gelignite factory that was part of a dynamite making complex built in 1901. There's an M shaped roof with a central wall running down the middle. One side is the winery; the other is a mess of small rooms with mud floors and peeling brick walls awaiting transformation.
Flagstone outgrew the other homes; the last was at the Waterfront Complex in the centre of Cape Town. This is in Somerset West, near the sea, next to the N2 motorway opposite Somerset Mall. The explosive makers spaced their buildings far apart so there's lots of space for development for this new industrial estate. Roadside billboards hopefully claim it's a 'Dynamite Place' for business.
The winery's concrete floor was poured just six weeks ago, winemaking equipment was installed as soon as it set, just as grapes began arriving. There is a line of stainless steel tanks down the middle. At one end grapes are already fermenting in them, at the other the tanks are awaiting unwrapping from factory packing.
Bruce Jack is a tall well-built, handsome man with a firm handgrip, wide smile, easy manner and an eye for detail that can spot a misplaced grape pip at a hundred paces.
‘I've driven past the place many times in the past week and never seen any tractors pulling hoppers of grapes towards it.’ I remark.
‘You won't,’ replies Bruce. He leads me through a newly installed door onto a wide loading bay. ‘This is what we use.’ He points to a truck with a refrigerator unit above the cab. ‘We pick the grapes, hand sort them in the vineyard and put them in these trays.’
The trays, specially imported from Israel, are shallow plastic boxes with collapsible sides that take minimal space packed flat. They're just deep enough to take one layer of grape bunches, to prevent squashing, and are stacked into a refrigerated truck for transportation. At the winery they're placed in a cold store. Bruce opens the door to a blast of chilly air. Outside the temperature is in the mid 30's and I decide to step inside for a while.
‘We keep them here for a while at 0° Celsius to bring the temperature down,’ says Bruce. When ready they're hand fed into a favourite 1970's de-stalker, then go onto a bench for a second hand sorting. Those that pass inspection go into open fermenters to be kept at 0° Celsius for two weeks. This cold soak gets colour from the skins and extracts tannin. Bruce explains that it's better to do it this way rather than during fermentation. Molecules form longer chains, which makes for softer tannins in the resulting wine. A white coat of ice wraps the tanks, which I notice are on wheels. I'm beginning to realize Bruce is the King of Cool.
When the temperature is gradually raised, fermentation starts. ‘What yeast do you use?’ I ask. ‘Natural,’ he replies. ‘Pinotage for Writers Block comes from an old vineyard which allows us to use wild yeast fermentation. Of course, that means we treat the vineyard organically. It’s not 'airy fairy'. Spraying will kill natural yeast. You must work with nature to get the best grapes.’
Grapes from younger vineyards destined for Flagstones blends are started naturally before commercial yeast is added. I see a bucket of frothing juice added to a low open tank ‘This is Shiraz from a new vineyard for our Longitude blend,’ Bruce remarks ‘we're adding N2 yeast which will accentuate its fruity flavours. In time we'll only need the wild yeast.’
Against the middle wall is tall structure of red painted iron. It's an open lift, onto which they wheel fermentation tanks and raise them up, then wheel presses under them so they can use gravity. ‘We only use pumps to take free juice after fermentation is complete.’
‘Who designed the winery?’
‘I did,’ Bruce replies, ‘its based on experience I gained at our previous locations. We'll be here for a long time and I think I've got it right this time. Let me show you what we're going to do next door.’
As we walk to a narrow opening in the dividing wall Bruce spots some grape pips stuck to a distant tank and calls for it to be cleaned. A worker bustles over. ‘How many people work here?’ I ask. ‘About twenty,’ Bruce replies. ‘We're very much a hands-on winery - we do things manually. And of course, it's good to create jobs.’
We step into a warren of rooms with uneven mud and sand floors. ‘This'll be for barrel maturation, and here,’ he steps through a low doorway - the door has long vanished - ‘this will be our bottle store. And we'll put some offices in also.’
The builder is based onsite. He used to work for Bruce's father, and worked on Flagstone's previous locations. In a couple of weeks he'll be laying a new floor and re-modelling the remainder of the building. I ask him what he thinks of the wine. ‘I'm a Muslim’ he replies with a big grin, ‘but I don't have to drink the wine to know its good, I can see the devotion that goes into making it.’
Bruce wants consumers to drink the wine as he meant it to taste. He already uses artificial corks but now he's decided to move to screw caps. He shows me a bottle of Dragon Tree Pinotage/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. A smart black cap seals the bottle, with a red band round the neck that proclaims - ‘this bottle is as precious to us as time. That is why we have sealed it with a sasicap. This is the undisputed best way to seal a fine wine. At Flagstone we do what is right for the wine. Always.’
From the vineyard to the store shelves, Flagstone are doing what is right for the wine.
(Peter May visited Flagstone in February 2003)
Issued by: Peter May, Secretary, The Pinotage Club - Passionate about Pinotage
Email: club@pinotage.org
Website: http://www.pinotage.org