ZABIBU

A very good friend happened to be flying over us in a helicopter with his camera in hand and was able to take this photograph of the vineyard. Thank you, Bob Campbell.

You can see how little of the vineyard it is now under mature vines – the green patches. All the rest (the apparently bare patches) has been planted out with new cuttings of Pinot Noir and so we will be up to full production again in a few years. The green patches represent only 460 Pinot Noir and 230 Chardonnay, so it is no wonder we don’t have much production yet. We planted out an additional 2000 vines about six months ago and most of these have taken well.

If you look at the image you will notice that there are terraces running down the slope. The hill is west facing and the image is taken looking east. Behind the house and the farm the land falls away across the plains towards Nairobi. The vineyard is surrounded by thick bush and is enclosed by the ’shock the monkey’ fence (see comments) fence. I assure you however that the baboons are incredibly smart and learn quickly not to touch it and still manage to find a way in. Us humans on the other hand, not so smart when it comes to fences.

The winery is the white square building directly above the vineyard and next to that are two large water tanks which collect the rain from the main house for irrigation. We also have two dams in the valley to collect water. The top terrace is dedicated to vegetables.

We try to use as much renewable energy as possible out here as there are no power lines. We have a windmill (visible by the farm behind the main house) which provides electricity and solar panels on the roof to heat water and for additional lighting. You cant see the biogas plant in this picture but the fresh cow turds from the farm are mixed with a bucket of water each day and feed the biogas plant which runs methane into the kitchen.