Rozendal, South Africa’s Vinegar Farm

Way back in the early 1980s, Kurt Ammann, formerly a restaurateur, made wine, producing Bordeaux blends from his farm in South Africa’s top wine region, Stellenbosch. But in 1988, there was a problem with the fermentation, and he wound up with wines with excessive volatile acidity — a “flaw” by any wine drinker’s calculation. But this mishap proved to be an opportunity for Ammann to explore the botanicals of vinegar making. “Vinegar making was serendipitous,” says Nathalie Ammann, Kurt’s daughter.

Kurt Ammann explored traditional processes and the French Orleans method of slowly adding wine to barrel-aged vinegar, though initially he was intrigued by the fermentative health benefits of raw, unfiltered, unpasteurized vinegar. He put the errant wine in some of his oak barrels and waited; the resulting vinegars were balanced, with slightly sweet, but big and bright as well. This was the beginning of Rozendal Vinegar.

Process - Nathalie in the cellar

In 1982, at the height of unrest surrounding apartheid  the Ammanns decided to leave Johannesburg, and the restaurant Kurt ran in the Brixton TV Tower. “He had a dream to grow grapes,” Nathalie says. He planted six acres of vines in Stellenbosch and opened a 16-room country inn. In 1994, the farm, which includes an organic garden against the forested mountain slopes of the Jonkershoek Valley, became biodynamic, and stopped using fertilizers and sprays. After a few years of experimenting, he found he was able to best express the some of the same nuances he nurtured in wine making, by infusing vinegars with botanicals, like buchu, bay leaf, honeybush and hibiscus, each carefully selected for both their health and culinary properties. 

Green Tea Vinegar

“The first was my dad’s concoction — it had green tea, chili, carob, bay leaf, inspired by kombucha,” says Nathalie. It was originally served as an aperitif at the restaurant on the farm, but eventually, they printed labels on a bubble jet printer and started selling a few bottles. 

The Ammanns continued to make a small amount of wine into the early 2000s, but by 2005, they had completely pivoted to vinegar production. The farm was a huge interest to Nathalie while growing up and she went on to study. agriculture at Steiner College in Sacramento, California. In the early aughts, her folks moved to the States, settling in Sedona, Arizona, making way for the next generation to take over the farm.

Over the last 20 years, Nathalie has been developing other vinegars, using native herbs such a buchu, honeybush, rose geranium, wild olive and rosemary to use in her terroir-centric Fynbos vinegar. “Buchu’s minty aroma is traditionally used for tea, one of those things that’s good for everything. Hiking in the mountains here, if you brush up against it it’s an explosion of scent!” 

She’s also created a flowery hibiscus offering, with rosehip, elderflower and vanilla. A balsamic that’s infused with lavender. “A lot of people associate [the herb] with soaps and essential oils,” says Nathalie, but it’s ubiquitous [in Stellenbosch] and amazing [in vinegar].” Her 30-year aged Essentia is a limited edition thicker aged-balsamic style vinegar.

“[Vinegar is] such an essential ingredient — we use a lot in marinades, salad dressings, sauces, even desserts,” lists Nathalie; she suggests marinating sub-par strawberries in their balsamic, adding some cracks of black pepper, and reducing the resulting mixture down into a compote, “and have it with ice cream!” 

Nathalie’s dad is a self-confessed health freak, and continues to put vinegar in his smoothies every morning, plus, they both think their vinegars are good enough, and balanced enough, to drink! “Dad has taken vinegar shots throughout his life — I don’t make any health claims, but it’s something that’s always been around, a part of my life”.