Fruits of Friendship

Date: 17/07/2003

With the new South Africa not yet a decade old, its little wonder that Cape wine is still pretty much a closed bottle for the rest of the world, a curious anomaly for an industry that has been cherishing the fruit of the vine for 350 years. When Tim Atkins, wine pundit for the UK Sunday broadsheet the Observer, addressed a wine marketing seminar in Stellenbosch last year, he noted that most punters in the UK thought that this center of the Cape wine industry and second oldest town in the country, was a place in Germany.

Globalization came late to Cape wine and the flood of French investment francs anxious to diversify out of the socialist France of president Mitterrand in the 70s and 80s that saw high profile joint ventures between some of the biggest names in French wine and the rest of the world, passed the Cape by.

In Napa, Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi launched Opus One. In Chile the project was Almaviva while the Lafite Rothchild's Chilean venture was called Los Vascos. Even those most traditional of French winemakers, the Champenoise, saw the largest of their number, Moët set up subsidiaries in California, Chile and Australia.

For a variety of political and historic reasons, Cape wine has today a distinct shortage of international sugar daddies with large marketing departments and international distribution companies. A singular limitation in this era of global wine production and million case brands with supermarket merchandisers fast replacing wine merchants who have serviced their clients for generations. Lacking an older, more experienced brother to show them the ropes, SA producers started making their own arrangements. Which made expanding the friendship between two young South Africans, Ernie Els and Jean Engelbrecht, into an international business venture, a natural development.

Located slap bang in the middle of Stellenbosch's golden mile, Jean's Rust en Vrede estate is one of the Cape's undisputed first growth properties. Routinely one of a handful of SA producers to feature in the Wine Spectator annual top 100 vinous hit parade, the farm has made its name with a classic blend fashioned from the twin pillars of Bordeaux finesse, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, united with the wild and slippery Syrah from the Rhône. With the 2000 vintage winning the trophy for best non-Bordeaux blend at a major SA wine show in May, its quality is beyond doubt.

A bit like Ernie Els on the fairway, in fact. The world #2 is passionate about many things: South Africa, wine, his family, his friends and golf.

The first fruit of the friends' joint venture is the Ernie Els 2000 red blend of the five classic Bordeaux varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot that are the ingredients of a classic French first growth. The same vintage as the R&V trophy winning estate blend, this wine has already been rewarded with a rating of 93/100 by the
Wine Spectator - the first SA wine to achieve such a stellar score and like Ernie, a stayer that will be around for a long time.

--Neil Pendock