Two uber-talented winemakers, making wines at different Santa Barbara County wineries, grew up in South Africa, attending the same college. But it wasn’t until they moved 10,000 miles across the globe to California that their paths finally crossed and they quickly became friends.
Ernst Storm is Curtis Winery’s winemaker, and he has his own label, Storm Wines. Dieter Cronje is Presqu’ile Winery’s winemaker.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with the intriguing young men to hear them tell, in their charming South African accents, their life stories, over a few bottles of their heavenly Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. (I know, I know. Tough job.)
Let’s start at the beginning: Storm and Cronje were born an hour’s drive from each other in South Africa’s Western Cape.
Storm grew up wanting to be a farmer like his sisters, to “work the land and be outside.” He enrolled in law school, but decided he just couldn’t bear sitting in an office. So he took a year off and traveled through Europe before returning to his homeland to attend Elsenburg Agricultural College in Stellenbosch to study winemaking. A couple years later, Cronje enrolled in the same respected program.
“Never knew each other in South Africa,” Cronje said.
“Yeah, never knew each other there … we even lived in the same dorm,” Storm said.
“Same floor,” Cronje laughed.
“I’m sure we drank in the same bars,” Storm said.
“It’s quite ironic, I think,” Cronje added.
Storm came to the United States in 2003 to make wine in Northern California, arriving in the Santa Ynez Valley in 2005 to work at Firestone Winery.
The charismatic Cronje, and his signature brown dreadlocks, came to Santa Maria in 2006 to work at a winery, and the two finally met at Au Bon Climat through local winemaking legend Jim Clendenen.
South Africa is producing very good wines: approximately four percent of the world’s production. So why travel to the opposite side of the earth to make wine?
“I just wanted to experience a different kind of hemisphere, and just kind of stayed here,” answered Storm, who married an American woman over the summer: attorney Brooke Sorensen Storm.
And Cronje, who is deeply passionate about Pinot Noir, went in search of a place to make his favorite red varietal and found himself in the Santa Maria Valley teamed up with the Murphy family at Presqu’ile.
Founded in 2008, the new winery is already producing some of the most captivating wines in the county. Their elegant Pinot Noirs are known for their “Santa Maria spice” characteristic.
“Stylistically we’re looking at more lower-alcohol wines, more acidity-driven wines, which tends to be better with food and they age a lot better,” Cronje said. “Which I think is fundamental for our wines, that we can get respected over decades, that our wines last and are still tasting good.”
Storm started his own label in 2006, Storm Wines. He handcrafts Pinot Noir, Syrah, and some of the loveliest Sauvignon Blanc I have ever tasted.
“I love making Sauvignon Blanc,” Storm told me. He blends Sauvignon Blanc from four vineyards from all corners of the Santa Ynez Valley, capturing the different terroirs. “We pick it lower, and it does come through,” he said. “There’s a little bit of herbaceousness to it, which I see as a positive.”
Storm’s goal is to create wines that represent the climate and soils with lower alcohol and higher acidity.
“The way I look at it is the only way to do that is make wines that are more balanced and not overripe,” he said. “In South Africa, I think we were more exposed to French thinking.”
“More precise wines,” Cronje added. “I think a lot of wines tend to be sloppy. There are a lot cleaner ways of doing things.”
Now that the intense harvest season is over, the two chums have more free time to hang out, whether it’s barbecuing, surfing at Jalama Beach and Pismo Beach, or speaking the same language.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” Storm said. “At least three times a month we have to get together and just talk Afrikaans. You know, kind of talk the way we talk back home and tell old stories, which is really good for us.”
Occasionally, Storm and Cronje treat their local winemaking colleagues to traditional comfort food from their homeland: lamb chops, sausage, and especially South African barbecued sandwiches called braaibroodjies (pronounced BRĪ-bray-keys).
Made with South African peach and apricot chutney, cheese, onions, tomato slices, and salt and pepper, the buttered sandwiches are placed right on wood coals until the onions steam and the decadent, gooey goodness oozes.
“We have a following here for braaibroodjies among our American friends,” Storm said. “If you have one, you’ll understand—not a toasted cheese sandwich.”
“The chutney is very important,” Cronje injected. “How hot the coals are when you actually put it on the fire is the most important thing.”
Of course the next logical question is, “What wine pairs best with braaibroodjies?”
“Sauvignon Blanc when the sun’s up. Pinot when the sun’s down,” Cronje said.
Storm added, “That’s in a perfect world.”
Sun food and wine columnist Wendy Thies Sell drinks Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir day or night. Contact her at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 6-13, 2012.
