This month, I write with a heavy heart. A few weeks ago, we lost Thys Lombard, part of the Oldenburg family for some ten years and a man whose work you know better than you may realise.
If you have watched our monthly videos over the years, Nic among the barrels, Christo walking the rows, the harvest coming in, the mist lifting off the amphitheatre, then you have been seeing this farm through Thys’s eyes. He was behind the camera, framing Rondekop at first light and waiting patiently for the clouds to do something worth filming. I think it is fair to say that many people around the world came to know this valley through a man they never met.
For over a decade, Thys carried our wines around the world, telling the story of Rondekop’s beauty and potential in person, in words, and through his films. People are pouring Oldenburg in distant cities today because Thys once sat across a table from them and showed them this valley, his mobile always at the ready with interesting clips that he had made. If you have ever wondered how a small farm in the Banghoek finds its way onto lists and into cellars across the globe, the answer is people like him.
Many of you met him here, too, perhaps without catching his name. Thys loved walking visitors through the vineyards to the top of Rondekop, and no matter how many times he made that climb, he arrived at the summit in genuine awe of the valley below. His enthusiasm was infectious; more than a few of our guests fell for this Place because Thys showed it to them the way he saw it.
I have often written that the Place is nothing without its People, and that our terroir is made of more than granite and sandstone. It is also made of the people whose work is rarely seen, the ones carrying our story to the world, the ones behind the lens rather than in front of it. They are threads in the tapestry every bit as much as the winemaker and the viticulturist, and the wine that reaches your glass carries their labour in it, invisibly.
The Thys I knew best appeared on film days in the vineyards. While the camera was being set and the light considered, there was always time to talk, and with Thys, the talk would sooner or later turn to sport. Rugby above all: he seemed to know half the Springboks personally, introduced many of them to the farm over the years, and always, always, had the inside form on the biggest games before the rest of us had read the team sheet. Nor was he an armchair enthusiast. A devoted family man on weekends, he would head for the coast with his people and get out into the surf. He was a formidable swimmer: he once swam the crossing from Robben Island to the mainland, seven-odd kilometres of cold, open Atlantic, fearless of what might be swimming beneath him. I have written often about the two oceans that shape our terroir. Thys didn’t just talk about the impact of the cool Atlantic current on Rondekop; he experienced it first-hand.
August on the farm is the season of pruning, the work nobody sees, done so that new growth can come. It feels a fitting month to honour a man whose work was of exactly that kind. The videos remain, and through them, so does his way of seeing this Place.
Our deepest condolences go to his family and loved ones. Hamba kahle, Thys.
Cheers,
Adrian Vanderspuy
Proprietor
