Melvyn Minnaar
LIFESTYLE
What becomes a legend most? In South African wine the compelling answer would be: keeping tradition on the roll.
This weekend’s Nederburg Auction 2000, the 26th annual sale of “rare Cape wines” in Paarl, sports a zingy new logo. In place of the previous rather drab landbouskou design, a golden globe backs the word “international”. Now English only, it seems to signal a new focus by the organisers on the very big wine world out there. After 25 years plus, one supposes that even a wine auction needs a refresher course or a kick in the butt. But will it work?
While the words “Nederburg” and “tradition” ring together like a duet in the great, ongoing Cape wine song-and- dance, perhaps that tradition is not quite what it seems on the surface. Cynics may even argue this grand PR event by Stellenbosch Farmers Winery (which clearly does have its positive pay-off in liquor stores) is now a drunken, half- dead concept on a life-support system.
The tradition of Nederburg is defined, among its objectives, as ensuring a distribution of “outstanding old wines available in only very limited quantities”. The problem is the “old wine” bit – and bidders today and tomorrow are going to show their understanding and appreciation, or not, of that concept in what they fork out for such ancient goodies. These range from the 1965 Alto Selected Cabernet Sauvignon to the 1969 Lanzerac Pinotage and the 1974 Nederburg Auction Shiraz.
Perception and price being the pals they are in the world of the to-be-seen wine crowd, these well-worn labels may sell for very large sums. But the cynic may shrug and suggest that beyond those oldies for the front of the liquor cabinet, there is very little else.
The fact of the matter is that there are very few wines of ageing worth being made in South Africa. It’s a modern wine world, after all. These days wine is made to be drunk – just days after being bought. South African winemakers, one and all, now have their eyes on the till at the checkout. Basically, today’s wine is also today’s cash-flow problem solver.
For Nederburg this last decade’s increasing fashion of ready quaffable wines, full of quick-fix fruit and little staying power, has become a dangerous, creeping syndrome of potential self- destruction. Other than sourcing a few rare lots from devoted outsiders, most of the older wines on auction come from the Nederburg cellar itself – about 75% in fact! At least, this well-known and established legend can look after itself.
But even if it is hanging in there by a narrow margin of conviction, the Nederburg Auction is a tradition to cherish – for a time in the future when fads change back to the appreciation of great wine which, after all, only shows its splendour after years in the bottle.
In the latest Grape magazine, Roy Richards – one of the United Kingdom’s top wine movers and shakers – laments the passing of a tradition of wine appreciation in an age when wine is treated as a “branded product” and “young buyers are those of consumerism” who are incapable of tasting and appreciating a classic.
How long Nederburg will hold out in the present era and fashion of fast wine remains to be seen, and depends on whether SFW talkers can convince more strong-minded vintners out there to make wine for the long-haul despite the trend.
We did it in classic Cape style in the 1960s – as that 1965 Alto on offer confirms. Now that’s the kind of tradition a legend should hold on to!
The Nederburg Auction takes place on April 7 and 8 at the Johann Groue estate in Paarl