At first glance, it seems an unlikely jump. How would a proof-reader, originally from Klerksdorp in the north of the country, wind up making wine for the Cape’s most decorated cellar? Ask Zinaschke Steyn, Nederburg’s new red-winemaker.
Actually, her journey is not that improbable when you look at it closely. This young force might have begun as a proof-reader for a printing works in Worcester but that was just after matriculating in 2005. She’d already planned to move south, setting her heart on a BSc in Chemical Engineering at Stellenbosch University because she wanted to be a brandy-maker. But then, as it tends to do, life intervened.
“After close to two years in the Cape, it seemed to me that winemaking would be better suited to my personality,” Zinaschke explains. “I like to get my hands dirty and be physically involved from the get-go, as opposed to starting with wine that is to be distilled. I’d be working more closely with the elements and have to tackle each vintage as an entirely new project. It’s the anticipation of new challenges, new parameters and new responses every year - that state of flux - that appeals to me. So, in 2007 I met up with oom Willie van Zijl at Elsenburg, and the rest is history.”
After graduating in 2010 with a BAgric degree in winemaking and viticulture from Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute in Stellenbosch, she went to make wine for Overhex Private Cellar, then the KWV and GlenWood Vineyards.
In 2018, she was offered the job as assistant red-winemaker job at Nederburg, thrilled to work for an internationally renowned cellar trading in markets on every continent.
She succeeds Samuel Viljoen who now heads Nederburg’s entire cellar.
Zinaschke is married and lives in Paarl.