Feline Encounter of the Wineland Kind

The winery sits high on the slopes of Stellenbosch’s Simonsberg, facing south-west toward the distant presence of Table Mountain, its outline framed between rows of green vineyard leaves. Autumn has arrived here. Almost.

In the west the sun is sinking fast, though a veil of thin cloud robs the mountain farm of the flamboyant theatre of sunset for which these hills are known. The light has already begun to thin into dusk. I am walking back to the deserted parking area after a conversation with the winemaker, who is now busy locking up the cellar for the night.

Weathered granite gravel crunches under my boots. (RM Williams, seeing you asked.) The wild-green scent of fynbos, sharpened by the falling temperature of day-end, hangs heavily in the air – herbal, earthy, breathing of soil and root, and vine. The Boland, yes. But Africa too.

Just before I reach the car, something compels me to turn around and look at the rows of Chardonnay climbing the higher slopes toward the Simonsberg. Sometimes you can look at a beautiful vineyard and taste the wine wine right there and then.

It is a strangely enriching feeling, at over sixty years of age, to find oneself in a situation never before experienced, something entirely new that suddenly unfolds before you.

Because standing there, before me, is a leopard.

The animal is not far away among the vines, barely offering me a fleeting glimpse of its presence here in the Boland. No. This leopard stands between me and those vineyards, right there on the bare patch of gravel.

And it is looking straight into my eyes.

In a feeble attempt at humour I try to count how many glasses of Chardonnay the winemaker and I tasted during our earlier discussion. Only two half-glasses, which unfortunately eliminates the possibility of a wine-induced leopard illusion. I think of my darling writer-mensch Herman Charles Bosman and his leopard story “In the Withaak’s Shade”. Should I channel my inner Oom Schalk and lie down, only to wake with the leopard sleeping soundly next to me?

Seconds pass here on the Simonsberg. The leopard remains perfectly still, staring. At moi. I notice how dramatically black the rosettes on its coat appear in the pale evening light. And how broad the jaw is beneath those eyes – deep pools holding things I do not know, and never will.

Suddenly I wish I were a bushveld boy, one of those field-wise men who would know exactly what to do in such a moment. Chase the cat away with a sweep of the arm. Perhaps shout a curse in some African tongue that would make the leopard turn and vanish instantly, as I have always heard a leopard can.

But if I were this leopard, I would know that a town fellow wandering around the gentle fields of the Boland is easy, vulnerable prey.

The intoxicated feeling of disbelief and wonder suddenly shifts into a surge of electric panic when the leopard closes its eyes and lifts its head slightly, like a gourmand preparing for the first taste of the season’s waterblommetjie stew.

That is when I hear my own heartbeat.

I try to turn my neck to see how far the car is behind me, but everything has turned to jelly. Literally. So I do the only thing left to do.

Like the leopard, I close my eyes.

And breathe.

When I look again, it is gone. Something moves through the vineyards, but it is unseen.

There were paw-prints. I kneel to touch the prints, etched in the wineland granite. The earth is, again, as warm as my heart.