The news from Decanter that the price of Château Mouton 2008 “rose from £1850 a case up to £2,200 on the back of rumours that the wine’s label would be painted by a leading Chinese artist – in order to boost sales in the region” highlights the importance of getting the label right. In SA, leading labelist Anthony Lane is getting stiff competition from an unlikely source: William Kentridge, described by an artist friend of mine as the Johnny Clegg of SA art. Or maybe he said Johnny Clog, his nickname when we were all at Wits and the Jaluka mainman could be heard in Central Block in his Dr. Scholls. They’re both mid-fifties, “secular Jewish” with curly black hair and they’ve both broken through to international acclaim.

Later this year William’s staging of the Shostakovich opera The Nose in New York will ratchet up his international profile another notch while the launch of a range of Eben Sadie wines with labels by William will do the same thing locally. Who knows, perhaps The Nose will feature – the symbolism is certainly on the button. This is not the first time William has turned his hand to wine labels. Something I wrote on the labels he made using Magic Flute images three years ago.

William Kentridge and Dave King

The memorial service for Andy Warhol took place in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan on April fool’s day 1987. A pianist played the passage from Mozart’s opera the Magic Flute that announces the entrance of the high priest Sarastro. Confirming the enduring attraction of the Flute for artists: some of the world’s biggest brushes, from Marc Chagall to David Hockney, have been inspired by it to produce evocative sets and backdrops.

Twenty years later, SA’s own art superstar, William Kentridge, designed and directed a production that premiered at Cape Town’s Artscape Opera House before transferring to the Johannesburg Civic Theatre.

What is this fascination with a flute? William says he chose it “because it’s so open-ended in terms of visual language. It raises questions of colonialism and issues around people believing in the certainty of possessing a monopoly on truth.” Warhol was probably more persuaded by the pomp and spectacle with George Bernard Shaw commenting that Sarastro’s anthem “within these sacred halls” is the only song ever written that sounds as if it could be sung by God the Father Himself.

Warhol’s genius was the commodification of art as represented by his iconic cans of Campbell’s soup. Cartoonist Bill Watterson was not entirely joking when he had Calvin and Hobbes comment “art has no purpose. All that’s left is commodity marketing. Consequently, I’m signing this landscape and you can own it for a million dollars.”

In William’s case, the price for the landscape was a more reasonable R50 000 (plus VAT) and the buyer was Anthony Hamilton Russell who is in the US at the minute. In order to fund a children’s version of the opera (slimmed down from three hours to one) William has sold the rights to charcoals from the production to six wineries for use as labels.

In addition, two cases of wine from each producer will be signed by William and auctioned to raise additional cash. William and producer Ross Douglas get four dozen bottles from each producer, which will fit nicely into William’s Houghton cellar and fuel his contention “I drink far better wine than I deserve.”

Using Flute charcoals for wine labels is entirely appropriate as one theme of the opera is the struggle between the philosophies of Apollo and Dionysus: the battle between critical reason and intoxication. Conversely, linking wine to the Flute makes total sense to William who is interested in the whole winemaking process “which is one of transformation, changing grapes into wine.” Transformation is another of the themes of the Flute, which on one ridiculous level may be interpreted as the search by Papageno, a bird seller, for some decent wine.

Of course fine art as label is nothing new – Château Mouton-Rothschild has famously commissioned a different artist to produce one for each vintage of it’s grand vin since 1945 and some of the gods of modern art, from Picasso to Bacon to Warhol himself, have been happy to accept the commission.

The six wineries involved are something of a Who’s Who of SA wine: Boekenhoutskloof, Hamilton Russell, Meerlust, Quoin Rock, Rustenberg and Tokara.

Marc Kent is one of the chairs at Boekenhoutskloof and a master of Syrah. He has recently started collecting art by contemporary SA artists like Joachim Schönfeldt and was thrilled to add a William bird image to his collection. Anthony already has an art gallery in his palatial Walker Bay home, Braemar, and he and wife Olive already collect landscapes, which made his William one a no-brainer.

8th generation Meerlust Myburgh Hannes got a pyramid with Masonic eye on top, a bit like an armed response sign. Or a lighthouse, which is quite appropriate as Meerlust is located close to False Bay. Hannes said he thought he’d use it for his 2004 Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon.

Financial services mogul Dave King got a bottle of wine, an empty bird cage and a bird arranged on a wheel like some domestic astrological chart. Dave is a great art collector, operating from a financial as well as hedonistic impulse. As he noted “mark to market (with some issues about tradability) SA art was the best performing investment in the world last year. I bought some (Gerard) Sekotos a few years ago and put them in my cellar as I didn’t really like them. Now that they’ve taken off, I’ve brought them up and show them with pride.”

An observation confirmed by João Ferreira of the eponymous Cape Town gallery who confirms “prices have exploded with artists like Maggie Laubser appreciating 1000% in 2006.” All good news for Dave, who set the local price record for Maggie a few years ago with a purchase for R270 000.

Opera also appeals to Dave who used to be a patron of the State Opera in Pretoria. King’s own operatic highlight was a trip to the Forbidden City in Beijing a few years ago to see Puccini’s Turandot. After paying $500 a ticket, he ended up seeing it twice after discovering that locals could buy tickets for $20 and were happy to sell them for $30.

Rustenberg, dubbed “the quintessential SA wine estate” by Anthony, has something to celebrate. Then winemaker Adi Badenhorst had recently been invited to join the Cape Winemakers’ Guild, so owner Simon Barlow thinks his charcoal rhinoceros will suit a CWG wine.

Ross notes that it will cost around R10 million to stage the Flute and Rand Merchant Bank (motto: “traditional values, innovative ideas”) has dug deep into its corporate pockets and come up with a R2 million sponsorship. Thereby stepping into shoes usually filled by governments in Europe and charitable foundations in the US, which typically subsidize three quarters of a ticket cost. As William noted “it will cost us a lot more than I expected – there were lots of complications and as a country, SA lacks the infrastructure to stage opera.”

As one of the trio of bankers who took over RMB in the eighties, transforming it into the financial powerhouse it is today, Tokara owner GT Ferreira opted to go with the image RMB has adopted as logo for the opera.

GT says he enjoys “the tactile aspect of winemaking” after a career juggling numbers and relates how when traveling overseas, he was asked what he did. “Retired banker becomes wine farmer” was his reply. “Show me your hands. There are no calluses, so you’re clearly not much of a farmer” was the verdict. “But I do have a callus on my finger from writing all the cheques” shot back GT.

With their new labels, the super six wineries can rub their calluses and add “patrons of the opera” to their corporate CVs.

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