Nash, Mary-Lou
Co-owner, winemaker, viticulturist, tractor driver, marketer at Black Pearl Wines
Contact: info
Website: Blackpearlwines.
Mary-Lou Nash is the co-owner, winemaker, viticulturist, tractor driver, marketer, and general "Jill of all trades" at Black Pearl Wines. She received a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, with a major in Anthropology from The University of New Hampshire in 1989, and then taught English in Japan for two years before going on a three year world tour. The travelling slowed down when she joined her father in 1995 on his newly acquired property in South Africa, Rhenosterkop Farm in Agter Paarl. Sixteen years later with permanent residency and two South African daughters (who are fluent in Afrikaans), Mary-Lou calls Paarl home.
Black Pearl Wines developed with Mary-Lou's passion for wine. Mary-Lou planted 4.5 hectares of Shiraz in 1997 and 3 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998. A boutique cellar was established in 2001. Mary-Lou tends to the vineyard year round and makes sure only premium, healthy, phenolically ripe grapes are delivered to the cellar door. The grapes are cooled before a gentle crushing, open fermented in 600 kilogram lots, basket pressed, and put straight into barrel where the wine matures for a year. The wine is further bottle matured before release.
I feel I have a unique site and the goal is to bottle what comes from the vineyard. I add only yeast and minimal sulphur to the wine, living by the motto of interfering as little as possible but as much as necessary. Black Pearl's aim is a limited edition, terroir driven wine that is drinkable now as well as able to mature further in the bottle. At present, Disneyland is scooping up a large percentage of the few thousand cases produced to serve as wine by the glass in all its white table cloth restaurants!
