Passion Fruit

Date: 24/01/2003
Author: John Strege


A trio of PGA Tour players has taken their love of wine into the vineyard and the result is some spirited competition - By John Strege for the Golf World

In vino veritas, the ancient proverb says. In wine is truth, and truth be told, Ernie Els and Greg Norman are nearly as proud of their jugs of claret as they are of their claret jugs.

British Open champions, each of them now is a wine merchant, having bottled their passion for the grape, as has another PGA Tour player, David Frost, who even has his own vineyard.

Thus, a veritable bottle royale is fermenting on the PGA Tour, glass warfare at the 19th hole. As competitions go, it may not be as spirited as those waged over the previous 18, but it is an intriguing one -- not especially surprising for a game afloat in affluence.

"They're into the better things in life," says Mitch Cosentino, an inveterate golfer and prominent Napa Valley vintner whose own name is on a label. "It's kind of a natural progression. A lot of people who come into the wine industry are people of prominence in other fields. The opportunity to see their name on a product of significance like fine wine, for a lot of them, it's a dream. They're caught up in the romance, and the wine business is a romantic business."

For the tour pros it is a serious business as well, at least for Frost, who is not shy about stressing the differences in their respective levels of participation. "All I know [about Els and Norman] is they just lend their names to their projects," he says, without rancor.

Indeed, Frost is the only one of the three likely to get his hands dirty. It is not that he actually picks his own grapes, but his level of expertise allows him to nitpick them. He and his brother, Michel, were raised on a wine farm in the Stellenbosch region of South Africa, 30 miles north of Cape Town, and now own a vineyard in nearby Paarl. Whereas Norman and Els might have palates refined enough to taste nuances in wines, Frost understands the nuances.

"From day one, I always knew what it took to grow grapes, how they have to reach a certain ripeness before you pick them," Frost says. "I know what expensive Bordeaux wines taste like. I know what expensive Napa Valley wines and Australian wines taste like. I try to find out how those wines were made. What kind of cropping? High yield, low yield? Then I tell my brother or [winemaker] Jason Fisher, 'I think we need to notch it up a step.'" His disadvantage is competing in a business world dominated by branding, and Norman and Els are brand names fortified by major championships, insuring their products greater visibility in the wine industry. "It's kind of unfair," Cosentino says. "The other guys, Els and Norman, it's more of a
marketing thing, and there is nothing wrong with that. But with David, it's the family business."

The danger for Frost, a 10-time winner on the PGA Tour, is that his preoccupation with wine might cause his golf game to wither on the vine. "It has hurt my game a little bit," he says, confirming what the PGA Tour money list suggests. Last year, Frost finished 126th on the list, the third time in five years he has finished out of the top 125, a slump that too closely parallels his entry into the wine business to be a coincidence.

Frost, 43, has been working with sports psychologist Bob Rotella on finding a game as palatable as his wine. "He told me, 'Bobby Jones always had a lot of things on his mind, too,'" says Frost, whose motive for playing well again extends beyond the thrill of doing so. "The better I play," he says, "the more wine I can sell."

"We took an intelligent approach. We gave great quality at the right price, instead of great quality at a high price. We wanted our wine to do the talking for us." -- Greg Norman

For Frost, golf and wine have always been inextricably linked. As boys, he and Michel hit golf balls into their father's vineyard, retrieved those they could find, then hit them again. David eventually migrated to golf, Michel to agriculture. Together, they bought a table-grape farm in 1994, then two years later converted part of it to wine grapes, resulting in the formation of David Frost Wines, its products bearing not only his name, but his expertise and his reverence for the game that gave him the wherewithal to enter the wine business. Frost dedicates each release to a golf legend -- his 2001 release, for instance, honors Arnold Palmer.

Greg Norman Estates, meanwhile, has the legend built into it, part of a marketing device in a joint venture between Great White Shark Enterprises and Beringer Blass Wine Estates, a division of the Fosters Group. Norman called it a branding association designed to bring "two iconics [sic] together" -- Norman, among his nation's leading athletes, and Ted Kunkel (president and CEO of the Fosters Group), one of Australia's leading businessmen. It was also an opportunity to expand his business empire with a product that sated a passion. "I'm not a connoisseur of the [wine] game," Norman says, while noting he does keep a 2,500-bottle cellar at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla. "I couldn't tell you what grape is from what region. But my palate is very sensitive. I enjoy wine. I drink wine every night with dinner."

The business plan called for Greg Norman Estates to start small, a curious decision for a man who devours life in outsized portions. Projected sales for the first year were 25,000 cases (a dozen bottles to a case). The final count was actually 125,000 cases. "We took an intelligent approach," says the 47-year-old Norman, who acknowledges he is more comfortable speaking to the business side of wine than the artistic side. "We gave great quality at the right price, instead of great quality at a high price. We wanted our wine to do our talking for us. When you went to buy that one bottle of wine you'd find tremendous value. Then because of the popularity and acceptance of the wine you can look at a product extension. We went to a Shiraz Reserve at $40 a bottle."

His debut offering was a '96 Cabernet Merlot, a $17 bottle to which Wine Spectator gave a rating of 91 points (on a 100-point scale, falling into the 90-94 range that the magazine calls "outstanding, a wine of superior character and style"). Greg Norman Estates also produced a '98 Shiraz Reserve ($40 a bottle) that received a 94-point rating from Wine Spectator. The magazine noted how the wine's flavors "linger and linger on the supple finish," a delicious irony for a man too often the victim of a lamentable finish. The seduction of the wine industry -- "I love it," he says -- recently lured Norman to the Napa Valley, where he gazed longingly over acres of vineyards for sale, pondering a purchase. "I loved that atmosphere," he says. "I could understand why you'd want to do that."

The vineyard is a romantic backdrop, as Els has come to recognize. His first date with his future bride, Liezl, was a braai (a South African barbecue) at the Rust en Vrede Estate, a Stellenbosch winery run by his long-time friend Jean Engelbrecht. His wedding reception was there as well, and the couple was feted with a special wedding wine, a blend of six vintages, each representing a year in their relationship.

Over the years, Els frequently drank wine with Engelbrecht, who discerned that his friend's palate was drifting toward Bordeaux styles. When they agreed that Rust en Vrede would develop an Els label, Engelbrecht sought to incorporate Els' preference and created a Bordeaux blend designed to replicate Els in liquid form -- big in stature and gentle in character, according to marketing literature.

It resulted in the impressive debut last year of Ernie Els Stellenbosch, which received a 93 rating from Wine Spectator, the highest rating the magazine has ever given a South African wine. The magazine's review noted the "seamless texture" and "the long ... finish" of the Els wine, proving at the least it succeeded in replicating his swing. The rating was a validation of Els' decision to enter the wine industry, that although someone else may have produced the wine to which he attached his name, "this is no celebrity wine," he told a South African newsman.

Its hefty appearance fee argues otherwise, $60 or more to show up on your table, provided you can even find it. Only 1,000 cases of the debut Els Stellenbosch were produced, half of which were shipped to the U.S.

Frost found it. "It's very good," he says. "It's good for me to have that kind of competition. I know it's a good wine, but I think my wine might be the same, maybe a notch up." Norman, meanwhile, would argue forcefully on behalf of his '98 Shiraz Reserve.

It all makes for a lively competition, one with an unusual objective for a trio of accomplished athletes who otherwise are determined to finish on top. In this game, they're vying for a spot in the cellar.

A peer's review of the wines:

Duffy Waldorf, whose cellar at his Santa Clarita, Calif., home contains upwards of 2,000 bottles, is among the PGA Tour's preeminent wine aficionados and collectors. Waldorf agreed to do a blind tasting of an offering from each of the tour's vintners. He commented on each and concluded how the wines stacked up against one another.

Wine No. 1: "Kind of light-bodied. Little bit of a sharp finish. A balance of some green olive flavor and some nice berry fruit. I'd like to see the finish last a little longer. It's a little too jumpy. A good finish you'd be tasting for a long time after, and it almost gets back in your nose and you get a whole bunch of other flavors. A great wine is like a book -- with a start, a middle and a finish. This wine hasn't got all these things together."

Wine No. 2: "Quite a bit darker color. Has a little purple in it. Purple's usually good. A sign they had good grapes. The nose [aroma or bouquet] is sweeter, a dark cherry. We call it an inviting nose, inviting you for a sip.
This wine has a lot more balance [than No. 1], which means the components are where they're supposed to be: tannins in the background and everything comes together in a nice long finish. Very enjoyable. A wonderful kind of cherry, berry fruit, the main component. It has a certain dark wood, dark cedar, almost a chocolaty-wood finish, which is nice. Nice balance. This one should be good for four to six years. Everything would soften up, but it's really enjoyable now."

Wine No. 3: "Nice dark color. Very fragrant. The nose, I call it 'briar patch,' like when you go out and hunt golf balls, not quite rosemary, but like when you're out there rambling around in the bushes. This one is more cherry. Has almost a candied sweetness to it. Very deep, very complex, many layers of flavors. I tasted the fruit, then I tasted the wood. There's alot of dark flavors, like leather. You can cellar this for two, three, five years. Seems to have the weight and depth to last quite a while."

In summary: "All these wines are very enjoyable to drink. No. 1 doesn't have the depth of the other two. Nos. 2 and 3 stand out from No. 1."

Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, were the 2000 Ernie Els Stellenbosch ($60) and the 1999 David Frost Cabernet Reserve ($33). No. 1 was the 2000 Greg Norman Estates Cabernet Merlot ($17).

-- J.S