Auctions and the remembrance of things past  12 April  2005

Of course, I don’t actually get invited to the Nederburg Auction, but I have learned some lessons in effective penetration from those little old black-garbed women in Italy who always manage to get on a bus first, even if they start off at the back of what Italians like to think of as a queue. So, one way or another I’ve been making sure I’m there since the days when auctioneer Patrick Grubb was a mere lad bravely defying the cultural boycott of South Africa, and when (correspondingly) the most honoured guests were the likes of Jimmy Kruger, notorious Minister of Police and Prisons. (Actually, I’m not sure that the ideas of apartheid’s finest cabinet ministers were any more bizarre – though with undoubtedly more serious consequences - than those of this year’s speaker, biodynamicism’s high-priest, Nicolas Joly.)

Perhaps Nic would blame an unfortunate alignment of the stars for the chaos that this year characterised an event usually notable for its superb organisation. Lunch, for example, (far more important for most people than the auction itself, of course) was an extraordinarily moveable feast. When I finally staggered out at about 4.30, some were just starting. Lord knows what they ate. Of the numerous courses I nibbled at, I’m pretty sure that the first one was a starter and the last one dessert (although I’ve heard that doubted from people at other tables), but inbetween it was a case of anything goes.

More bizarre than Saint Nicolas’s alternation of banality with high-flown absurdity were, of course, the prices paid for some of the wines. It is even said by those who are more sceptical than I that the auction is coming to be a competition between especially sauvignon blanc producers to see who can get their agents to push the price of their wines highest into the stratosphere.

On the personal level, I had a nostalgic experience which brought me close to tears, I confess – perhaps I was in a weakened condition because of the long wait for lunch. It wasn’t the thought of Jimmy Kruger, or even the sight of that girl from Rijk’s Cellar ostentatiously sporting the kind of breasts that I myself wore to the Auction in the good old days before gravity took its dreadful toll.

No, it was when a gentleman squeezed in next to me at the bar that was serving Nederburg Cuvée Whatever-if-it-bubbles-drink-it. (I needed a little pick-me-up, you see.) The man’s nametag identified him as one Paul Sauer. Suddenly I was back in even pre-Auction days, when I was definitely a pretty young thing, and the light of my now sadly departed husband’s life. Remember, anyone, those lavish Kanonkop parties, the kind only they could give? Paul Sauer, larger-than-life soul of the party and owner of the great Kanonkop Estate. With his pretty daughters Cato and Mary at his side. Drinking Tassenberg, telling us not to worry about the political situation and reminding us of the joys of wine and life, while son-in-law Jannie braaied the most fantastic fish.

Here at Nederburg I looked up at the wearer of the aforementioned Paul Sauer nametag, a good-looking darkish lad in his forties. He greeted my inquistitive gaze with a rakish though sympathetic smile (I’m sure he’d also noticed that fleshily adorned creature from Tulbagh, and understood my thoughts about the fleetingness of youth and gorgeous flesh.) And he noticed my stare at his nametag. Well no, he said, he was not actually Paul Sauer, but the great man’s grandson – Paul Krige, who along with brother Johann now owns Kanonkop. In another bit of uncharacteristic inefficieny, it seems that the organisers had been so carried away by the great man’s legacy that they had misprinted the descendant’s nametag.

There was certainly a real shortage of celebrities at the Auction this year – but digging them up from the grave is taking it a bit too far.

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Talking of Kanonkop and the wine named after Paul – I mentioned in my last little despatch to you about the new winemaker there getting the credit for the 1999 vintage at the recent Calyon competition, when really it was Beyers Truter who’d made the stuff (unless you go along with Nic Joly and give all the credit to nature and the stars). A kind reader reminded me that this was a case of what goes around coming around. When Beyers won his first Winemaker of the Year award at the International Wine and Spirit Competition a dozen or so years ago, one of the wines in the portfolio which won him the title had been made by his predecessor, Jan Boland Coetzee. Who went quite unmentioned….