When COVID-19 swept across the globe in 2020 and forced billions of people into unprecedented stay-at-home orders, many struggled to cope with the monotony and disruption of locked-down life. For Natasha Jacka, a 27-year-old who had just left a career in restaurants to pursue her passion for winemaking, the pandemic would become an unexpected catalyst to turn her long-held dream into reality years earlier than planned.
Jacka had recently enrolled in viticulture studies at an agricultural college in Stellenbosch, South Africa’s iconic winemaking region just outside Cape Town, when lockdown closed campus and confined her to her parents’ sea-facing home in the Cape Town suburb of Noordhoek. Tired of the restlessness that came with being stuck at home, a moment of inspiration struck while she gazed out over her family’s sprawling yard: what if she turned that unused space into her own personal vineyard?
What began as a passing “small spark” of an idea quickly turned into a full-scale labor of love. After winning buy-in from her family, Jacka set to work transforming the plot of land, which had once been part of a smallholding. She cleared the ground, sourced 1,400 grapevines split between two blocks (one for a white blend, one for a syrah red varietal), and planted each vine by hand alongside a supporting wooden stake. Even her parents joined the effort — though her mother Sonia was eventually sidelined from planting after accidentally putting one vine in upside down.
The project came with unexpected hurdles beyond manual labor. Curious neighbors questioned the unusual backyard project, and Spirit, the family’s miniature horse, developed a taste for young vine shoots, costing Jacka one or two plants before she could secure the plot. For context, Jacka’s 1,400 vines are a tiny fraction of the more than 50,000 vines that cover the average commercial wine farm, making the endeavor a long shot from the start.
Unlike many fast-paced modern industries, winemaking rewards patience. Four long years passed before Jacka was able to harvest her first vintage from the vines she had nurtured from tiny cuttings. She carried out every step of the process herself, from harvesting the grapes to crushing them by foot on her parents’ property. When the finished wines debuted, they earned glowing praise from leading South African wine critics — a relief far more meaningful than any potential profit for Jacka.
“I wasn’t looking at it like, oh this is going to make a fortune or anything like that. This is a labor of love,” Jacka explained, adding that she could not imagine the disappointment if years of work had amounted to nothing.
Christian Eedes, editor of South Africa’s leading online wine publication winemag.co.za, who gave Jacka her first positive review, called the project “a triumph of hope over good sense.” Eedes notes that producing high-quality wine and turning a profit from such a small operation is notoriously difficult, but Jacka’s handcrafted, small-batch wine fills a unique niche in a market dominated by mass-produced brands.
“There’s plenty of space in the world for craft and handmade,” Eedes said. “It’s the opposite of mass produced. It’s made with thought and care and typically hard to come by.” He remains fascinated by the project that grew out of lockdown boredom, adding, “She managed to not be bored, like we all were. It’s really just an extraordinary undertaking.”
Now 32, Jacka has turned her lockdown passion project into a full winemaking career. Her Alinea wine line now includes five additional vintages made from grapes sourced across the greater Cape Town region, which boasts centuries of rich winemaking heritage. Still, she remains deeply connected to her original Noordhoek micro-vineyard, where she continues to handle every role from harvest and stomping to labeling, sales, accounting and delivery. She says she is already eagerly looking forward to her next backyard harvest.