Back to Brandy

A litany of youthful indiscretions resulted in my decade-long aversion to brandy which, fortunately, over time rose gently like the mists from a broad, cool river and dissipated until all was clear again. The memories of nights filled with debauchery fuelled by many a tall glass of Klipdrift brandy mixed with Coke in a one-to-three ratio, and the gut-strumming nausea of those painfully hung-over mornings, are buried in the past, like scribbly teenage love-letters and the questionable fashion tastes of a forgotten youth.

Today I adore brandy, albeit the poetic refined spirits of Cognac, the robust, earthy yearnings from Armagnac or the treacly dense Gran Soleras distilled in Jerez. It is, all, the pure spirit from wine, bearing the essence, the heart of the grape held in an angelically handed cusp.

The history of South African brandy is as rich and colourful as the country’s wine legacy, beginning with the raw offerings first distilled in the Cape in 1672 for numbing the minds of locals, disinfecting flesh wounds caused by disharmonious daggers and curing evil rashes accrued during wonton sexual activity. From the 19^th century the brandy became smoother, barrel-aged and soul elevating and tasty, distilled from the Chenin Blanc and Sémillon vineyards the pioneering farmers patched around the winelands, like verdant throws of freshly dyed silk rugs.

Brandy distillation and aging became the work of craftsmen blessed with fastidious sensorial faculties, and just like the Cape grew into a realm of good and great and distinctive wines, so too it developed into a part of the world where fine, excellent brandy is made.

Sydney Back from the Backsberg Estate in Simondium was one of the early pioneers of South African estate brandies, a sector that came into being in 1990 after the dropping of legislative restrictions allowed him, and his pursuers of further refinement in the country’s brandy offering, to do so. Produce the spirit from grapes growing on an estate. To milder alcohol levels, down to 38%.

Back imported a glorious russet alembic still from Cognac, using the sharp, low-alcohol base wine made from his mountainous Chenin Blanc vines for distilling a brandy of character, heart and singular beauty.

Although Back has passed and the original Backsberg wines and brandies are no longer in their original place, having been transposed to Franschhoek under the guidance of liquor company DGB, the song of Sydney Back brandy remains the same, as elegant and heart-felt, as charming and engaging as ever.

I was recently gifted a bottle of Sydney Back 10 yr old Potstill Brandy by local brandy expert and lover Winnie Bowman CWM, and although the bottle’s level is falling, I am partaking of a snort each and every night. And when the bottle dies, it will be replaced, oh yes it shall.

The colour is of old gold and a long, slow sunset upon a land where desert meets the ocean, the thick sea air causing the rays to bleed as the sun’s light sighs in its ending the day, and meeting the night. On the nose, the spirit offers a scent that is both fierce and seductive, alerting the senses in a manner that is precocious and vivid, lined with nuts, marzipan and a whiff of saddle-leather freshly coated with dubbin. It is the perfume of anticipation, prelude to an encounter that only promises pleasure.

And this comes with the taste, where the liquid rolls through the keenly awaiting lips, tumbling into the mouth and dancing on the senses with flavours both vigorous in their prying and gloriously satisfying in their offering of a broad, all-encompassing decadent warmth.

Dried Turkish apricot with a touch of cut sultana raisin lead the fruit symphony, a charmingly bright aspect, one elevating the deeper, mysterious allure of mocha, black chocolate and burnt orange-rind. There is, too, a whisper of dry hay laying on stripped wheat-field baking in the sun, as well as a slight hotness of smouldering fynbos edged on by the warm tug from a dry, coarse north-easterly berg wine.

The senses open to these flavours and tastes, seduced into doing so by the strike of the spirit that is, as ever, the backbone of the liquor that is brandy. For it is power and presence, force and might that anchor a fine brandy to the heart and body, now ensuring the memories are nothing but an endless delight.