drink my wine
Enthusiasm is a quality that all winemakers display when you speak to them. But there’s something else when Dorothee Kirchner and Alexandra McFarlane speak about the wines they produce at the Druk My Niet wine estate in South Africa. Druk My what, you say? That surprise is not uncommon. Although it dates back to 1692, knowledge of Druk My Niet – an Afrikaans phrase meaning ‘don’t squeeze me’ – wines are confined to a small, but loyal, circle of enthusiasts.
That’s something that Kirchner and McFarlane are hoping to change, bringing their wines for a special dinner at Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur’s Mandarin Grill. Kirchner, together with her husband Georg, bought the farm in 2007. McFarlane joined as winemaker in 2016. New blood brought new ambitions, but the team remains faithful to the sustainable farming methods that came before them.
McFarlane calls the wines ‘home wines, not Hollywood blockbuster wines.’ That is to say, they are wines designed to be appreciated at leisure, rather than awing. That’s partly to do with terroir – Druk My Niet is located within the Cape Winesland Biosphere Reserve in the Boland, a warm growing region that yields complex wines – and partly to do with the farm’s bio-organic methods. That creates wines like the 2011 Cabernet France, where an undercurrent of dark fruits paired amazingly well with smoked cured duck breast with pistachios and berry compote. Or the sharp, almost aggressively earthy and savoury tinges of the 2012 Malbec, which created a perfect umami storm with a roasted eggplant tortellini.
McFarlane admits to being impressed at how well the menu was paired, since she had little chance to work with the Mandarin Grill team. The way the spicy flavours of the 2012 Invictus – named after Nelson Mandela’s favourite poem – worked together with braised lamb croquettes and glazed pearl onions was culinary alchemy. As was the beautifully grilled Black Angus tenderloin, when it melded with the 2011 T3 (a blend of Tannat, Tempranillo and Tinta Amarella grapes) on the tongue. It was a meal to overwhelm the palate. Which is why we were grateful for the Malva pudding, a traditional South African Cape Malay dessert, to end the meal – warm and comforting. And we left, earnest and educated, on the appeal of Druk My Niet.
