Wine of the Week 70: Ampersand Cinsault 2024

“In wine, as in life, balance matters: between effort and ease, between what we know and what we never will. The seen, the unseen, and the space between. The ampersand, &, holds it all together.”

So reads the back label of Ampersand’s Cinsault. For winemaker and viticulturist Dean Leppan, a qualified yoga teacher, balance has long been a guiding principle. Fittingly, it was yoga that first led him into the world of wine.

From yoga to wine

In 2006, after teaching English in Taiwan and backpacking through India, he and his wife, Pauline, arrived in Hermanus with plans to open a yoga studio. Among their students was the late Ezanne Newton Johnson of the renowned Hemel-en-Aarde winemaking family, and the two couples soon became close friends. The friendship eventually led to an opportunity on the Newton Johnson’s Sandford farm, where the Leppans began producing cheese from the milk of a small herd of Jersey cows.

Then came the financial crisis of 2008, and the dairy was closed. The Newton Johnsons then offered Leppan a position in the vineyard, despite him having no prior experience in agriculture. He went on to manage the vineyards for around 12 years, which included planting South Africa’s first albariño.

Achieving a flow state

These days Dean is the farm manager and viticulturist at Gabriëlskloof in Bot River. He produces Ampersand in his spare time, though he admits he doesn’t get much of that. “Luckily, I get to learn from some exceptional people, including Rosa Kruger in the vineyards, while also having access to winemaking advice from Peter-Allan Finlayson, John Seccombe, Albert van Niekerk and Anmar van Niekerk. It makes for a truly collaborative and creative environment.”

His wife, Pauline, recently opened a new yoga studio in Hermanus called Yogaheart, where Leppan teaches a weekly men’s class called Broga. The group, he says, includes farmers, winemakers and a handful of other regulars. “There’s the occasional swear word thrown about!”

Drawing a parallel between yoga and wine, Leppan says: “Both run on energy. What you put out there is often what grows. If you focus on the challenges and stumbling blocks, you tend to struggle. I find farming works best when you can get into a flow state and make decisions instinctively.”

A sense of mystery

When it comes to winemaking for his boutique label, he “wants the site, cultivar and vintage to speak”. To that end, he uses no added yeast and avoids both fining and filtration. The cinsault comes from a site on the foothills of the Helderberg in Stellenbosch, “where the deep soils combine granite and ferricrete to give the wine not only fruit, but grip and structure”. The pinot noir, meanwhile, is sourced from what will soon become the newly established W.O. Shaw’s Mountain in the Overberg. He has also recently bottled an albariño, which is yet to be released.

The name Ampersand was chosen to reflect the sense of mystery he feels about the elements of making wine. “I think it would be arrogant to believe we understand all of them,” he says. “Some are measurable, like soil types and rainfall. But what about the microbes, the ambient yeasts? Who knows, maybe even the phases of the moon have an effect.”

The name also reflects his outlook on life. “You can’t have the good without the bad. To live life fully, you have to embrace both, and that’s where the real beauty lies. It’s ‘and’, not ‘or’.”

Ampersand Cinsault 2024

Forty percent wholebunch fermentation, raised in older oak barrels for 10 months, unfiltered and unfined. Red jewels of fruit; strawberries, raspberries, intense and concentrated yet light. Spice cupboard aromatics. A fine clutch of dry tannins frames juicy freshness of black and red fruit, adding savour and length.
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