***NB*** We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown.
Today on the podcast we have John Seccombe, winemaker and owner of Thorne and Daughters – a wine brand based in the Walker Bay District in the Cape South Coast Region of South Africa. From his maiden vintage in 2013 John quickly established Thorne & Daughters as a name to take very seriously. He was one of the first winemakers to put a spotlight on the very rare Semillon Gris variety with a wine called Tin Soldier (first released from vintage 2013).
He makes his wines at Gabriëlskloof in Bot River alongside other New Wave producers Peter-Allan Finlayson (Crystallum) and Marelise Niemann (Momento) and is one of the very few South African winemakers who studied viticulture/winemaking outside South Africa.
We chat about his journey in creating the Thorne and Daughters project with this wife Tash, and he talks us through each of his 2019 wines.
John is a true gentleman and one of the nicest people in wine that I have met. I think being slightly older and having a bit more of a diverse professional background gives John a different perspective and world view than many of his contemporaries. He is quite humble, almost apologetic, a deep thinker and a hopeless epicurean.
I give you John Seccombe.
Also a quick note on the quality of the audio – as we are in lockdown at the moment in South Africa and we are relying on the internet to record these podcasts, and it doesn’t always behave. We have done what we can to make it listenable as possible.
