A Song of Summer in the Heart of Darkness

The storms pelt the Cape, bringing sheets of welcome rain and bracing chilled air scented by the salt and kelp from an ocean that is heaving with anger and danger. For the first few days all this is rather entertaining as the natural elements thunder and wail, and assert their oft-forgotten presence on the world around. We are but a little being.

But after nearly a week, the soul grows tired of the gloom, the situation not helped by the continued chill that has the knees creaking as you rise to put more wood in the fireplace and fingers numbly struggling to handle a cork-screw with the required aplomb.

To warm the soul there is sport from sunny northern climes where tennis is played on the verdant grass-carpets of Wimbledon and wiry gentleman peddle around beautiful France under blues skies in Le Tour. I am also elevated by streaming the European shows given by Taylor Swift, the greatest singer of all-time, and a songwriter of tremendous literary dimensions. And when she sings of Champagne, I am especially enraptured:

Because I dropped your hand while dancing
Left you out there standing
Crestfallen on the landing
Champagne problems

Your mom’s ring in your pocket
My picture in your wallet
Your heart was glass, I dropped it
Champagne problems

For now it is not only the right time to sing about Champagne, but also an apt time to consume it – despite the frigid air and stormy weather, the damp earth and the dim heavy sky. Nothing lets the sun in like Champagne, or any other traditionally made sparkling wine of fine quality.

The persons in my immediate surrounds, thus, were questioning my state of mind last night when I plucked an ice-cold bottle from the fridge and removed the cork on a bottle of Pieter Ferreira Birdsong Cap Classique from the year of 2020. While others took soul-warming draughts from glasses of Tawny Port and sips of Irish whiskey, I watched with expectation as the life-affirming sparkling wine frothed into a broad and deep glass.

Pieter Ferreira needs no introduction, being the leading persona of South Africa’s Cap Classique category. His work at Graham Beck is legendary. And the wines under Pieter’s own label each bear the hallmarks of a true and skilled craftsman, whose comprehension of Champagne and Cap Classique and all such good fizzy things brings his personal bubbly soul to every glass. Where it is experienced, as well as being tasted.

Birdsong is an extra brut, coming in at just 3.5grams of residual sugar, and is made from 75% Chardonnay, with the balance being Pinot Noir. An eagle eye for perfection in the expression of terroir via this extra brut style saw Pieter sourcing grapes from Napier in the Overberg, as well as the limestone-rich soils of Robertson. No wood or such was used to swell-out the base wine, which spent 48 months on its lees during that wonderous process of secondary fermentation in bottle, where texture and flavour is drawn, and bubbles are born.

To have this wine in the dark heart of winter makes the name of Birdsong especially relevant. Along with the sliver of golden sunlight its presence brings to the soul, the wine’s exuberant energy and loving, joyous sparkle evokes the same feeling as does hearing a flock of cheery, noisy bokmakieries celebrating the wonder of a new day.

The mousse settles, and an aroma of warm, sun-dried hay and arum lily drifts from the glass. It is pale-cold in colour, the shade of a pharaoh mask reflecting from the eye of love-struck Cleopatra. The attack on the mouth is gushing and thrilling, rapturous, the sparkle turning one’s five senses into nine, opening the mind and heart to speculate on what flavours this beautiful wine might hold.

I find forelle pear, picked just before the nectar of complete ripeness has set in. Then, a run of thick-skin lemon-peel with a generous helping of sherbet, a mouth-puckering grip of salt-lick and – thank be to the Pinot Noir – there is a teasing poke of red-berries with a slight essence of floral perfume. A comforting note of brioche threads its way through the medley of taste, but just so, leaving the focus on a fruity, stony purity.

Two glasses later, and Birdsong has worked its wonder, and the world opens. And here comes the sun.