GANSBAAI – American Trevor Deruisé didn’t plan to become a winemaker. He certainly didn’t plan to end up making award-winning wines at the southern tip of Africa. But sometimes the best journeys begin with a fall.
When Deruisé’s mountain bike went down hard in California, taking his professional cycling career with it, he had no idea the accident would ultimately lead him to a roofless winery three hours from Cape Town and eventually creating some of South Africa’s most unconventional wines. “My plan at that stage was always to get back to cycling. Unfortunately, that never became a reality due to injury.”
The injury happened right before harvest season near his home in southern California. With nothing but time on his hands and a desire to stay useful Deruisé decided to help out at local wineries. What started as a way to pass time during recovery became six vintages of hands-on learning.
At 24 Deruisé was looking at killing time between harvests. He wanted to immerse himself deeper into winemaking, and scoured the web to find a location where he could work in a wine cellar in his off-months, January to April.
“Where in the world does a harvest take place during a one small window of the year?” The answer: South Africa.
“I didn’t know anything about South Africa or its wines,” he admitted. That evening, Deruisé walked to a wine shop near his apartment and bought his first South African wine, a Simonsig Chenin Blanc. “It was a lovely introduction to South African wines.”
What followed was a series of applications to wine farms across the Cape that mostly led nowhere. Then Deruisé spotted an article in a California wine magazine about up-and-coming South African wine regions. It mentioned the Cape Agulhas region and a former Simonsig winemaker Hannes Meyer, who was starting a new wine cellar at Lomond just outside Baardskeerdersbos.
A message changes his life
Deruisé sent a message and Meyer responded immediately: yes, he needed help with the harvest.
When Deruisé’s driver picked him up from Cape Town International Airport, he assumed Agulhas must be a suburb of Stellenbosch. After all, wasn’t that where all South African wine came from?
“En route we’re passing a lot of signs for Stellenbosch in the first hour, so everything is making sense. But the one thing that started to concern was that we were not turning at any signs. We just kept going.
“By the third hour there were no more Stellenbosch signs. No vineyards. Nothing. I’m very concerned. I mean, three hours in this country and they already got me!”
What awaited Deruisé was even more alarming: a dirt lot, four walls, no roof, no doors and definitely no winemaking equipment visible inside. “I wasn’t sure if I was hired to come make wine or help build the place.”
Meyer, however, seemed utterly unfased. “He tells me we’re actually ahead of schedule here. Everything is going beautifully. We’re going to be bringing grapes in here in the next day or two, he said. That was really the first of many times I thought this guy is crazy. There’s no way this is going to work.”
Somehow, against all odds, that first harvest came together. But it required 20-hour days, constant improvisation with secondhand equipment that kept breaking, and making wine in what was essentially an active construction site.
“The welder is busy on the roof, and he’d tell us, ‘Sorry, guys, we need to cut the power for a couple hours.’ So now we must wait, and wait. And that in really critical times.
“There were so many nights during that first month that I would be driving home from that farm at one in the morning with the thought: I’m finished here, I’m on the first flight home.
“I’ve had my fill. No more winemaking. I still want to make wine. Just not in South Africa.”
But something unexpected was happening during those brutal weeks. “Back in the States, when you have a bad day at work everybody wants to go their separate ways, go home, watch TV, be by themselves. Here we would have a bad day pretty much seven days of the week that first month. And every single day would end the exact same way.”
Whether they finished at midnight just to start again at 04:00, every day ended with the entire farm – vineyard workers, cellar team, tractor drivers, everyone – pulling up chairs in the dirt parking lot, starting a fire and having a meal together. It was a sense of community I have never felt anywhere in my entire life. And it was just so special.”
When the time came to book his flight home Deruisé found himself staring at his laptop, unable to click “purchase”. He closed the computer. “It was very clear to me that this is where I wanted to continue.”
So he made Gansbaai his home and today continues to make wines at Lomond, but this time leasing four blocks of vineyards there and making wine under his own label, aptly named Lost Boy Wines.
Winemaking philosophy
Deruisé’s winemaking philosophy reflects both his unconventional entry into the industry and a deep commitment to letting the cool Agulhas climate speak for itself. All his wines are naturally fermented, with no commercial yeast or other preservatives added.
This approach demands patience. His barrel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc, for example, can take four months to finish fermenting during a cold winter. One barrel didn’t finish until the end of winter. But the results are transformative. Take that Fumé Blanc, the wine that changed everything Deruisé previously thought he knew about Sauvignon Blanc.
“When I came here I actually really did not like Sauvignon Blanc. I swore I would never make a Sauvignon Blanc. I thought this was one of the most boring, predictable cultivars, just with this blinding acidity.”
But his Afrikaans winemaking mentors took it personally and made it their mission to change his mind. The result is a wine that most people wouldn’t identify as Sauvignon Blanc in a blind tasting, including Deruisé himself.
His unconventional manner of winemaking, using whole-bunch fermentation technique and old 500 l French oak barrels, it offers soft acidity, floral notes of elderflower and fynbos, and a richness and length he never imagined associating with the grape. “All words I never thought I would use to describe Sauvignon Blanc,” explained Deruisé.
Perhaps his most unconventional wine is his Cinsault, made entirely by means of carbonic maceration, a labour-intensive process where whole grape bunches are submerged in carbon dioxide for four to five weeks.
“I use open-top barrels. We take a barrel, put it upright, take the head off, and then we set each of these bunches into these barrels very gently.” The CO2 – generated by adding about half a liter of fermenting rosé juice – enters the berries through the skins, creating unique flavours while breaking down tannins into soft, delicate structures.
When he opens the barrels after five weeks the grapes look freshly picked, perfectly preserved. “You can pluck them off the stems and eat them. They taste actually just like this wine. And they’re fizzy inside, which is quite cool.
The result? A Cinsault of stunning pale ruby colour – almost strawberry-hued – with surprising richness despite its delicate appearance.
“I was never a Cinsault fan either,” Deruisé admitted. “If you try to make Cinsault like a traditional red wine, I think you’ll always be disappointed. Cinsault is an inherently elegant grape. I really lean into the elegant side.”
He makes wine in tiny quantities. Deruisé smallest production – the former Latigo, now Las Flores – makes between 300 and 800 bottles per vintage, all from a couple of rows of Mourvèdre. His Malbec, when conditions allow him to make it, yields about one barrel”, roughly 300 bottles. Deruisé wouldn’t have it any other way.
In an industry obsessed with scores and critic approval he has taken a radically different path. Deruisé sells every bottle directly to clients – either at tastings at his Gansbaai home or to people he meets at events.
His peers thought he was crazy. They warned it was a terrible way to grow a brand. Deruisé stuck with it anyway, until last year when everything changed in the most unexpected way.
He arrived at what he thought was a casual Friday braai at Lomond. Every winemaker from Agulhas was there, which seemed unusual but fun. Then the massive doors to the barrel room closed, plunging everything into darkness. When light returned Deruisé found himself sitting alone at a long table.
Entering through the back door: World renowned prominent UK wine critic Tim Atkin, who was there to taste Lost Boy wines.
“I’m now very nervous about this whole situation. I’m trying to figure out a way out of this. I’m scanning the room for what door is probably still open. There was no way out.”
So they tasted the wines and Atkin was gracious, but nothing more.
Deruisé mostly forgot about it, until weeks later when he woke to hundreds of WhatsApp messages from around the world. His Mourvèdre rosé had been named by Atkin’s “Discovery of the Year” and everybody suddenly wanted a piece of him.
Nearly a decade into his South African journey Deruisé still lives simply in the Agulhas region he’s come to love, together with his South African wife.
Lost Boy. It’s the perfect name for someone who found exactly what he needed by having no idea where he was.
