The wine farm journey began just over 20 years ago for Bernhard and Peta Veller when they looked to buy a house with a beautiful view on a 37 hectare piece of land in the Durbanville countryside. However, the size of the property posed what seemed to be an insurmountable problem – it was too small for a loan from the Land Bank and too big for the commercial banks.
It was Peta’s mother, Christine, who came to the rescue lending them the outstanding funds to buy what they have since nurtured into Nitida.
The Nitida Matriarch is a tribute to Christine who epitomised the name fully. A woman of great tenacity and strength, she created an incredible home environment for her 5 children which was always full of people, debate and laughter.
“She had intense humanity, wisdom and colonial graciousness and personified the name, Matriarch. She really was a benevolent leader to our immediate family and to everyone else we brought home,” explains Peta.
It was important for Nitida’s winemaker, RJ Botha, to make both a White and Red Matriarch Cap Classique so that the true spirit of Christine could be captured in unison. For Peta, The Matriarch evokes her mother’s elegance, selflessness and graciousness, while her mother’s joy is reflected in the Matriarch in Red, a celebration of her vibrancy and astuteness.
“In fact,” says Bernhard Veller, “while our Matriarch’s were designed to celebrate Peta’s mother’s role in our lives, they seem to me to represent the qualities of so many women. I am in awe of the resilience required by today’s special women to fulfill their dual functions in the work place and home environment. Our society expects them to do the impossible and juggle their personal ambition with their instinctive role as the nurturing glue that holds the family together.”
A blend of Chardonnay and Pinot noir, The Matriarch is Nitida’s very first white Méthode Cap Classique. This bubbly impresses with exquisite, fine beading emitting pomegranate and raspberries as it dances on your tongue.
To achieve a fresh, fruit- driven style, The Matriarch spent only 9 months on the lees before being degorged and corked. It will uplift sponge cake and strawberry panna cotta and sparkles up a humble mushroom risotto or a little smoked wild Irish salmon millefeuille.
Nitida Matriarch in Red is made of 100% Shiraz grapes and teems with mulberry, paw paw, dark chocolate and ripe plums. Bernhard and Peta first discovered deep red bubblies in Australia where they fell in love with the Black Shiraz from Rockford in the Barossa, South Australia. They decided immediately to become one of the first South African cellars to make this wine.
“We started off with small quantities as a fun venture and have increased our production substantially over the years. The measure of our success is that even with the unusualness of the red Cap Classiques, we are still struggling to fulfill the market demand,” says Bernhard.
A red Cap Classique can be a high risk venture. As with any other red wine, the grapes are harvested, crushed, de-stemmed and then fermented in open vat fermenters. It then is left to mature in barrels for nine months, unprotected by sulphur which would inhibit secondary bottle fermentation. After a further 10 months on the lees, it is finally degorged and corked.
“The wine has to be in perfect health throughout this almost two year process,” says Bernhard, who enjoys his Matriarch in Red most served icy cold with rare roast beef on a hot summer’s day.
With just 3 000 bottles of each produced from the 2010 vintage, The Matriarch and Matriarch in Red are available exclusively at Nitida Cellars at R115 a bottle.
Nitida has built an enviable reputation for its cellar door hospitality and award-winning wines. A combination of unbeatable views, imaginative food at Cassia, the signature restaurant on the estate, and wonderful wines awaits visitors in a unique environment on the Durbanville Wine Route, just 20 minutes from the Cape Town city centre.
