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The news that Chris Hellinger has sold his fisherman’s paradise in the armpit of Africa, Bom Bom Island, to Africa’s first astronaut Mark Shuttleworth, is reason enough to suggest a visit to Chamonix which is also owned by Chris. While Franschhoek itself may be running out of steam as the Food Capital of SA, when it comes to barrel fermented Sauvignon Blanc, on its own or blended with Semillon, Chamonix winemaker Gottfried Mocke is on the topmost rung. Here he is (left) with Belgian restaurateur Christian Cloos on Tuesday.
“How often does the tail wag the brontosaurus?” asks wine impesario Michael Fridjhon in Business Day this morning. The brontosaurus (below) being the Nederburg brand and the tail the annual Nederburg Auction “where turnovers dropped significantly for reasons that aren’t at all difficult to discern. The sale has lost its sex appeal — which means it’s not attracting the stocks and buyers that would make a difference in a tough market.
A week later it became clear that the Cape Winemakers Guild (CWG) Auction has usurped much of that polish and gloss — and its turnovers (as well as the average prices paid for a smaller and seemingly more exclusive offering) reflect its current position on the podium.” The only problem with the comparison being the “punters” at each event are quite different.
Fascinating story on the R160 billion/year luxury Swiss watch export market by Michael Skapinker in the Financial Times last week. How ironic that the main ingredients of those luxury watches – gold and diamonds – do not naturally occur in Switzerland. Yet most of the profits are made by the gnomes of Geneva and their shareholders, while sick African miners are left to sue for healthcare benefits after generations spent mining those very commodities.
Su Birch, CEO of WOSA, the wine exporters’ embattled mouthpiece, tweets this morning “Cape Wine 2012 is aiming to be the first green wine show ever. Join us from 25-27 September in Cape Town, and see just how.” Which is bizarre, as Su has unilaterally banned the wine drinking public from CW2012, thereby throwing wine tourism show Vindaba into crisis as few produccers will be able to justify two tasting tables at the same venue at the same time.
I met KWV marketing guru Jeff Gradwell a millennium ago in the ancient deserts of Namibia. Back then he was brand manager at Nederburg and had come up with the crazy idea of tasting all the vintages of Edelkeur ever made in the eerie Valley of the Moon. Probably the best vertical of stickies ever held south of the equator, it confirmed that Jeff’s imagination is as broad as the Swakopmund River, but not as dry. The Nederburg connection was remade last week when SA’s leading lifestyle brand lost its black white winemaker Tariro Masayiti (below) to KWV, where he will make reds. As comedienne Angela Lloyd tweeted him “remember colour comes from the skins!” which curls the toes on so many different levels.
Tariro Masayiti
While SA wine apparatchiks run around the country briefing on Vindaba, next year’s all singing, all dancing wine tourism conference at the Cape Town International Conference Centre, wine tourism itself continues apace. All this “busy, busy” activity reminds me of the Roman general who wrote to Caesar over two millennia ago “If we don’t stop having all these meetings, we’ll lose the empire.” Landbouweekblad yesterday quoted Prof. Nick Vink, chairman of the department of agricultural economics at the University of Stellenbosch, that exports to England, Sweden and Germany are down 44%, 15% and 20% respectively. Quick, let’s have a meeting.
Last night, I met a six pack of Argentinean tourism journalists in the Michelle Obama suite of the Table Bay Hotel at the Waterfront. Flown to SA by the national airline, I accidentally briefed them on the Rainbow’s End Cabernet Franc 2009, Iona Sauvignon Blanc 2011 and the Krone Rosé, three wines chosen by the Table Bay to showcase SA wine.
Argentinean journalists at the Table Bay last night
So Jancis Robinson does not expect to see a black member of the Cape Winemakers Guild within 20 years. We I do and her name is Ntsiki Biyela and I had dinner with her last night at the Grande Roche in Paarl. The Roche is a venue JR herself dubbed “one of the best billets in the Winelands” after one of her trips to judge SA wine – presumably not the time she heroically “judged” 151 young SA shirazes for the Old Mutual with the worst case of ‘flu ever, doing it all by texture. Amazing!
Ntsiki last night @ the Grande Roche
With food banned inside the bidding room at this year’s Cape Winemakers Guild Auction at Spier, action gravitated to a flat screen monitor with prices next to the mini hamburgers and cheese on Chinese spoons, outside. “Shit” said Nev “I’ve missed the Spier Pinotage and it averaged under R1000 a six pack” confirming the contention of rainmaker Alan Pick that “the boys are getting klapped. Prices are down 35%” by 11:30am, although Alan’s son was an enthusiastic bidder for the Ernie Els red, which is a lot better than Ernie’s game at the moment, as the auctioneer cheekily pointed out. Hopefully a late spurt in prices will save the day, after all, my favourite wine, the Le Riche 2008 Cabernet, is a late lot.
Team Pick at this year's CWG Auction
Wine commentator Mr. Min comes down firmly on the side of the Nederburg Auction in the Battle of the Auctions underway at the minute. Nederburg last week (sorry to have missed Mr. Min on both days of Nederburg) and the Cape Winemakers Guild, this coming Saturday.
Writing on his Gape blog, Mr. Min notes “if Checkers [supermarkets] manages to flog the wine [they bought last week] to shopping housewives and the like smartly, the local wine industry should give them a heroic handshake. So much more significant, from a wine cultural point of view, than the other auction where yuppies shout up prices against one another, and glow in the power of their money, never mind what’s in the glass.”
A typical CWG Auction bidder as seen by Mr. Min
The Argentine and South African wine industries have a lot in common – and not just that both countries supply grapes for Tassenberg or that many wineries are owned by Standard Bank. Jaco Maree’s blue flag logo signals the most prominent bank in Buenos Aires. Could this be the ultimate banking wine sponsorship? Nedbank backs the Cape Winemakers Guild. RMB bankroll commercial sales exhibition WineX. Standard sponsor an entire country – Argentina, ripped from the bosom of the SA winelands of Gondwanaland by powerful geological forces, some time ago? Or is Jaco going for the title of Mr. Malbec, having lost out on Pinotage to ABSA?
Ethnic names pop up everywhere as marketing mojo, but Argentina has an edge in that its culturally correct monikers are at least short and easily pronounceable – Zaha (heart) and Teho (blood from the earth) and my personal favourite, Bo Bó. The first two are terrific terroir blends of Malbec with Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc and Malbec certainly makes very fine reds indeed, even if my favourite, the Alta Vista Terroir Selection 2008, stumbles in at a swingeing 15.5% alcohol. Something else the Land of Tango shares with SA.
Benoît Berneron and three Malbecs
