The art of the wine magnum 17 April 2008

Wooden bottles, that is, decorated for charity

Fifteen artists – both professional and serious amateur – have been working on fifteen wooden magnum-sized wine-bottles, all for charity. The organisers are Newton Johnson Wines. The artists (including Cameron Platter, Titia Ballot, Jayne Beaumont – of Beaumont Wines, Lise van der Walt, Meave Dewar and Neville Hickman – that's the one in the picture) have been encouraged ‘to incorporate the wood grain of the bottles into their design or to treat it as a blank canvas and cover it completely’ – which gives plenty of scope.

You can see the bottles exhibited at the Newton Johnson winery, in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley just inland from Hermanus . They will be auctioned on Friday 2 May at the winery, with proceeds going to the Rainbow Trust which, says the organisers ‘aims to uplift in all possible respects the present and future community of Zwelihle Township in Hermanus’. Bids can be made beforehand, however, at the winery.