Out of Africa--Kenya’s Own Wine

There is a place in the heart of Africa’s Great Rift Valley where wine grapes grow. The Masai named this place E-Nai-Posha , “that which is heaving; that which flows to and fro.”

It is perhaps an old ancestral way of describing Lake Naivasha, a remarkably beautiful spot and the home of Kenya’s first commercial winery, Lake Naivasha Vineyards.

My sister-in-law, Elli, a native of Los Angeles, and her husband, John D’Olier, a Kenyan farmer, started the vineyard in 1982, planting vines from California on the shores of the lake.

Elli’s letters were full of stories about her new life and the progress and perils of the young vineyard. She wrote about the giraffe that wandered through the vineyard, dining on the tops of thorn trees, and about the hippopotamus that chased her from the lake to the steps of her veranda. Her letters contained as much real-life drama as any that Karen Blixen sent out of Africa.

Lake Naivasha Vineyard, 60 miles northwest of Nairobi, may be one of the world’s strangest locations for a winery. But the reasons that make Lake Naivasha such a special place also explain why a vineyard 50 miles south of the Equator can thrive here.

As you approach Naivasha, riding over the crest of the escarpment, you have a breathtaking view of the Great Rift Valley and Mt. Longonot rising 9,000 feet above sea level. But the immensity of mountains is diminished within the vast, endless plains of the Rift Valley. This enormous seismic fault in the earth’s crust provides the sandy volcanic soil that nurtures the vines.

With the exception of two rainy seasons, most days in the valley are hot and dry. Naivasha has cool evening temperatures because of its high altitude, 6,200 feet, and moist breezes off Naivasha, the highest of Kenya’s Rift Valley lakes. It is also the Rift Valley’s only freshwater lake, and its waters are used to irrigate the vineyard.

It was harvest time at the vineyard, John and Elli’s busiest season, when my husband and I arrived. We had come to Kenya to go on safari, but for a few weeks we ended up harvesting wine grapes.

“Habarai asubuhi.” The melodious Swahili greeting rang out from the workers gathered outside the winery ready to begin the day’s tasks.

“Jambo sana,” I answered, enjoying the opportunity to use the Swahili phrases I was learning.

The harvests take place in the early spring and fall. The grapes are picked in the cool morning hours between 6 and 10 when they are freshest. In the weeks before I arrived, the crop of Sauvignon Blanc grapes had been harvested and were fermenting in 1,000-gallon fiberglass vats inside the winery. But there were rows and rows of vines (13 acres in all) burdened with clusters of green-gold Colombard grapes waiting to be picked. “Kazi mengi,” the workers said, and I knew that had to mean “lots of work.”

As the sun rose over the vineyard, there was singing and laughter. The men sang comical songs about women and love, often raising their voices in falsetto, mimicking the women they were singing about.

I looked forward to my mornings with the harvest because it was a chance for me to become acquainted with the people who live and work in the surrounding villages. With the exception of a few women who took time off from their domestic and gardening chores around the farmhouse, the harvest was done by men, the majority of whom are from the Luo, Kikuyu and Kamba tribes.

They were curious about the cost of things in the United States, everything from T-shirts and blue jeans to a plane ticket to Kenya. I told them the kikapus (straw bags) we were filling with grapes sold for as much as $25 in many stores. For these men who earn a small wage as grape pickers and farm laborers, America seemed like a place where only millionaires could live. But they couldn’t believe anyone with much money could be happy.

During the harvest, the winery was a hub of activity. Every piece of equipment was in use, from the mechanical crusher that destemmed and crushed the grapes as they were brought in from the vineyard, to the wine presses that strained every last drop of free-run juice from the grapes.

Except for the crusher, imported from Italy, all the equipment, including the fiberglass vats, was manufactured locally following D’Olier designs. Even a refrigerated stainless dairy tank was converted for use in the winery. A local artist was asked to design the labels for the wine bottle, and Alfred, a young Kikuyu from a nearby village, was hired and trained to manage all aspects of the winery.

According to the Nairobi-based Kenya Wine Agencies Ltd., which handles all bottling and distribution for Lake Naivasha Vineyards, production is up from 3,000 bottles in 1985 to a record yield of 300,000 bottles this year.

News of the vineyard and winery has traveled quickly through the, uh, grapevine. John and Elli are hosts to many guests who stop by on their way to or from safaris, balloon rides over the Rift Valley or camping trips in the Aberdare Mountains. During my stay, a crew from CNN came to report on the winery. Later, a family who own a small winery in Bonny Doon, California, spent a few evenings talking shop with the D’Oliers.

During a recent visit to Kenya, Robert Mondavi and his wife discovered Lake Naivasha wine at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club and later paid the vineyard a visit.

After sampling Kenya’s alternative to the domestic papaya wine, it’s no wonder visitors find a bottle of Lake Naivasha Sauvignon Blanc, Colombard or Carnelian (a nouveau style red wine) a coveted souvenir among the kikapus, copper bracelets and brightly colored kanga cloths that they bring home from Kenya.

My own adventures in Naivasha often began as part of the day’s work. One of the chores around the homestead was to collect firewood and straight branches that could be used to stake the vines. This job took a couple of men away from the harvest for the day. We rode in a trailer hitched to a tractor to Kedong Ranch, a communal Masai farm that spreads for many miles below the slopes of Mt. Longonot. Hudson, a Kamba, was our driver and unofficial guide.

Over the tractor’s loud engine, Hudson would shout, “Twiga!” and point to a giraffe. He would frequently stop so that I would take pictures of zebra herds galloping across the brown grassy plains or catch a glimpse of a gazelle darting into the bush. When we stopped for the men to clear away the bush for wood, Hudson warned I should look out for simba mkubwa , big lion. But his smiles told me he was only teasing.

The ride on the tractor pulling a trailer full of wood was slow and rough across the unpaved trails. At the end of the day, every muscle ached. Safaris no doubt were more comfortable cruising in a Land Rover.

At Naivasha, I was surrounded by the beauty that people come to Kenya to see. On Sundays, the family made excursions to nearby game reserves. For example. we occasionally had picnics at Lake Nakuru, 40 miles from Lake Naivasha, where we watched flocks of pink flamingoes feeding and bathing on the lake.

Naivasha is also famous for its exotic bird life. Blue herons were a familiar sight along the shore, and it was thrilling to watch fish eagles swoop down out of the sky. Just a few miles from the vineyard is Hell’s Gate, a national game park and Masai reserve. Its name suggests the ominous rugged cliffs that open to Lake Naivasha and the mists of steam that rise from fractures in the Rift Valley floor.

A short rowboat ride took us across Lake Naivasha to Elsamere, the memorial home of Joy Adamson, the author of “Born Free.” If you arrived in time for lunch, a cast of black and white colobus monkeys welcome you and usually hang around until you share some of your lunch with them. On neighboring Crescent Island, I wandered through abandoned thatched huts and walked among kongoni, gazelle, zebra and giraffe, all roaming wild and free on this tranquil sanctuary.

My walks along the lake were always enjoyable, although I managed to cut them short whenever I spotted a dark gray hump in the shallow waters. I couldn’t help remembering Elli’s encounter with a hippo and her warnings that despite their size hippos are very fast.

On the morning before our departure, we took one long last look at Lake Naivasha from the top of Mt. Longonot. It was a spectacular view. High upon her peaks, we walked along a narrow path that circled dual craters and discovered a densely wooded forest in one, a sprawling green pasture in the other.

My husband carved his impressions of Naivasha onto a sign that stands at the gates of Lake Naivasha Vineyards. Etched in the wood normally used to support the trailing grapevines is a jagged outline of Mt. Longonot, leading into a cluster of grapes chiseled into the shape of Africa.

Our Kenya trip is just a series of memories now--the faraway roars that haunt the night, giraffes striding with their long-necked gait, roadside markets crowded with barefoot women, their babies slung in kangas across their backs.

But how easily the memories come over a glass of Lake Naivasha wine.