My everlasting romance with wine

Author: Jocelyn Hogan Wilson
Venture
: Hogan Wines
Website
www.hoganwines.co.za

As a teenager, I had my sights set on becoming a botanist. I love to get my fingers into the soil, watch a seed or cutting being nurtured and to see it grow into something beautiful. I also knew that an office job would never work for me. A tangibility factor has always been very important for me.

Growing up in the Eastern Cape, I was never really exposed to the wine industry.

In 1997 when I was 16 years old, I came to visit the winelands with my family. My father was great friends with a gentleman called Glynn Kent (who sadly passed a few years ago), and his son Marc Kent was setting up Boekenhoutskloof in Franschhoek. At that stage they were planting the vines and setting up the cellar. Meeting Marc was a turning point for me. His passion for wine was infectious. It was like a spark being ignited for me.

I was intrigued with the concept that a single glass of wine tells the story of an entire year: weather conditions, how well the vine was treated, an expression of soil and site in a glass. What a magical concept. I was hooked and knew this was exactly what I wanted to be doing.

I studied a BSc Agriculture in Viticulture and Oenology at Stellenbosch University. What an amazing 4 years of my life. To study what you love with like-minded students and to have the jol of your life. Highly recommended. It was a small group of us who graduated in the end (about 30 of us) and this tight knit group of people have been so important as friends to count on during my career journey.

My first job was as a cellar hand for a harvest season at winery in Margaret River, Australia. This was a fantastic experience to learn the basics of how a big cellar operates. It was extremely physical. Women are expected to do exactly what men can do physically (in this type of working environment) in Australia. I remember being in tears one morning asking my housemate to help me lug 25m pipes across a 100m space. But nevertheless it taught me some valuable lessons about keeping a cellar in ship shape condition and about cellar design.

I came back to SA after this harvest to a job as the assistant winemaker at Flagstone winery. What a dynamic winery this is. They make a huge array of grape varieties and are dynamic in their marketing and branding. Bruce Jack (owner and cellarmaster) was a wonderful mentor to me, especially in refining my palate with blending wines. He is a master at this.

After two years at Flagstone, my big break came. I got the job as winemaker and general manager at La bri wine estate in Franschhoek. This job entailed a complete revamp of branding and improvement of the wines. It was a wonderfully holistic overview of the running of a wine farm. I was the marketer, winemaker, book keeper, building supervisor(at times☺), cellar hand etc.

I assisted with the design of the new cellar and my design concept with the Cape botanical etchings on the labels are one of my proudest achievements at La bri. I was awarded best Cabernet Sauvignon in SA by Christian Eedes for my 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon in 2013. Sadly 2009 was my last vintage at La Bri.

Our son was born late 2008 and we knew we wanted to have another child. The time away from home marketing was just too much for bringing up small children. I took a 4 year break from the industry to spend time with our children.

By mid-2013 I was itching to get back into winemaking.

After lengthy discussions with my father, over many bottles of wine we decided to start up Hogan Wines together. The idea was to start small, rent cellar space, buy in grapes and to make natural wines.

It had always been a desire of mine to experiment with natural fermentation but had not been possible in my previous jobs due to the high risk factor. I would now be able to make wines exactly how I wanted to…I was tickled pink with the idea.

That freedom in it being your own is indescribably uplifting and motivational. In 2014 we harvested our first grapes from Swartland 38 year old bush vine Chenin blanc. Gorgeous stuff. The wine was fermented naturally in French oak barrels (only 5 barrels made) and was bottled in November 2014. We plan on releasing the wine in May 2015.

For this 2015 harvest…we are so pleased with the 2014 Chenin blanc that we doubled the volume of the wine (now 10 barrels) and we are also making a red wine blend of Cabernet, Cinsaut and Carignan (also all natural fermentations).

So Hogan Wines is well on its way. Now comes the selling. We are confident that the quality of the wine will speak for itself. We plan to sell the wine virally and in bespoke wine shops as an artisanal, naturally made wine. We already have an extensive mailing list of potential customers who have requested to be put on the buyers list for our launch in May. This has been through word of mouth and our Instagram page (hoganwines). The wine will always be in small, limited volumes and will always be made naturally.

What I have learnt on this perpetual journey so far:

  1. “Trust your taste”This is Flagstone’s slogan and there couldn’t be a truer word said about tasting wine. Go with your gut. It’s kinda like a multiple choice test. Your first answer is often the correct one. Don’t hesitate.
  2. Don’t take no for an answer.If you want to make something happen you will need to frequently overcome the answer “no”
  3. Don’t be shy to ask for help or advice.It’s the only way you are going to learn
  4. Practice.In my case…very desirable practice: keeping ones palate up to date.
  5. Tasting, talking about, judging and comparing notes about wines, as often as possible. Good wine cannot be made without tasting the best the world has to offer. At varsity I didn’t have the budget to taste the worlds’s best. So I waitressed at Decameron in Stellenbosch in my 1st year and in my 3rd year I worked as a sommelier at 96 Winery Road Restaurant. This exposed me to some fantastic wines and also to the SA restaurant industry. The consumers’ taste is an important thing to understand as well.
  6. Allow yourself to be emotional or (in my industry) romantic about what you do.It evokes passion, spirit and free flow of ideas. Our quote on our back label is from Oscar Wilde: “I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb”

A good friend in the wine industry once said to me “The magical thing about wine is that you can never stop learning more about it”…so my perpetual journey continues.