The Grape Escape

Paarl wine farm begins the journey back after disaster

When Dorothee Kirchner stood on the dry, dusty roadway at the gates of Druk My Niet Wine Estate on the night of 9 January 2017 and watched her home burn, she faced a choice: allow the fire devastating her beloved farm to triumph, or to endure the calamity with fortitude.

The fire had started in a pine forest high on the mountainside above the farm, and the near galeforce wind drove the raging inferno down the slope in minutes. By the time farm foreman James Johanneson had hitched up a water tanker to the farm tractor and headed back up onto the slope in a brave attempt to tackle the fire, it was too late. The three guest cottages at the top of the farm were gutted, and the beautiful manor house and cellar and the farm foreman’s cottage at the gate were wreathed in flames.

“I was reading William B Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy at the time, and as I stood there, minutes after I fled my home with nothing but the clothes on my back, I resolved to take to heart his message: let go of the past, and focus on what I could control and manage,” says Kirchner.

Battered, but not broken