VINES, VINEGARS & GOOD VIBES

‘Every wine actually wants to become vinegar,’ says Nathalie Ammann as she carefully pours tots of vinegar into tasting glasses. Rozendal Farm, the home of the award-winning vinegars Nathalie has lined up for a ‘tasting’, is unsurprisingly surrounded by vineyards. It was after all once home to a red-wine blend that her father, Kurt, produced in the 1980s from grapes grown in the vineyards he and his wife Lynette planted.

That’s until a Swiss visitor to the farm introduced Kurt to the concept of the healing potential of vinegar.

It just so happened he was mulling over what to do with a flawed batch of wine from the 1988 vintage at the time. He was inspired and shifted his focus to converting the contents of the barrels into a balsamic-style vinegar. Kurt, his vineyards and his wine have long since retired, but the vinegars have blossomed into a highly prized line, now produced and marketed by Nathalie.

Long before vinegar became an ‘it’ item in the pantry, the Ammanns saw the potential in taking ordinary vinegar and making it special. ‘We bottled the last wine in 2002