Thick as thieves
11 April 2007
Tales of Jürgen and Johnny, and Marvin and Johann
It is seldom that I get emails from rich and famous people
ticking me off (Michael Fridjhon’s about as high as I can normally aspire
to). So forgive me if I boast about recently hearing from Jürgen Harksen –
yes the notorious criminal and former Cape wine estate owner himself, now
languishing, as far as I know, in a German prison. Clearly with internet
access, however: no doubt spurred on by news that his ex-barrister in Cape
Town, Johan van den Bergh, had had it confirmed that he is to be struck from
the rolls, he must had done a spot of googling and found an earlier comment
of mine. So what does the pious crook have to say? Essentially: ‘I
think that you have been too hard and unfair in your judgement. Everybody
can make mistakes just as I have.’
‘Mistakes’ is one way of describing multiple fraud. (I too
have, indeed, made mistakes – as I would admit to my dear husband in
accusatory moments.) But nice to come across such loyalty amongst, er,
friends.
Golf, friends and suchlike luxury goods
Is it fawning of me to be proud of my correspondence from a
person of such renown? It was the Australians who invented the term
‘cultural cringe’, and it’s clearly a factor we have taken over from them,
together with a taste for sweet, alcoholic and woody wines. I enviously
suspect, though, that in Oz they’ve got over the stage of reacting like a
tickled puppy dog whenever some lordly foreign winewriter (especially an
American) condescends to throw a little bone of appreciation. We haven’t.
There have recently been some rumblings from the US magazine
Wine Spectator – or Wine Speculator as it’s known to people
more cynical than I am about its combination of prices, scores and
life-style tips for rich trophy-hunting Americans. Senior writer James
Molesworth descended on the Cape to pick his way around a few chosen
properties. How did he decide which ones to go to? I’m not quite sure, but a
few disgruntled, unvisited producers are also wondering.
Some think they found a clue in the fact that the
owner-publisher of Wine Spectator has also recently been forging
some South African connections. Marvin Shanken’s his name, and golf is his
game – along with expensive wine, expensive cigars and expensive
celebrities. He combined all those interests recently when it was kindly
arranged for him to have a nice little South African round of golf: with
Gary Player, Ernie Els – and Johann Rupert. He wrote a modest piece about
it, which, if you can stomach such things, you can find if you click
here.
Despite his own great interest in wine, Marv describes Johann
in relation to luxury goods manufacturer Richemont, but strangely doesn’t
mention that Johann also owns L‘Ormarins, the Franschhoek estate into which
he’s been pouring uncountable millions, and which is shortly to launch its
range of new and (let’s hope) improved wines. (Incidentally, I do wonder why
Johann has got that superfluous extra n on his name – is it just another bit
of showy and unnecessary luxury goods, I wonder?)
Let me state for the record that I’m quite, quite, quite sure
that Wine Spectator content is not influenced by such things as the
gratification of its owner. It’s true there is occasional nasty malicious
gossip about the magazine which suggests something less than high-minded
independence as an occasional motive – a lot of hoohah was raised a few
years back when an important American journalist wrote an
article suggesting, amongst other things, that ‘It's
never been proved that advertisers influence scores, but suspicions run
deep’. But who could possibly believe that of a wine magazine publisher?
And who could believe in anything other than the noblest of
motives from a big businessman? Our Johann would never, I’m sure, try to
curry favour with the editor or staff of the world’s most commercially
important (though far from the best) wine magazine. I’m sure he just likes
playing golf with nice people like Marvin. Anyway, his ambitions would focus
on raising the image of Cape wine as a whole, of course, rather than
personal aggrandisement.
Johann and Marv do have inerests in common, after all –
including inhaling smoke, and/or getting others to do so too. A lot of the
Rupert billions came from the pleasant business of selling cigarettes, and
Marv is a great cigar smoker, and also has a cigar magazine. The great
publisher tells us in his story about their meeting that he and Johann
became ‘pretty good drinking and smoking
buddies. In fact, Johann was kind enough after dinner Friday night to bring
out a humidor filled with pre-Castro Cubans—that was a very generous
gesture. I smoked three!’
In these
cynical times, how charming to find someone who knows how to make a simple,
generous gesture, and how nice to find someone who can respond with such
alacrity! (My husband might have called it greed, but then he’d have been on
Castro’s side in any smoky confrontation with either Johann or Marvin)
And so the Spectator writer came for his visit. I’m
pleased to report that, such was Mr Molesworth’s independent assessment of
relative wine quality in South Africa, that one of the 14 blogs he filed
from here was apparently devoted to L’Ormarins. Another went to Jean
Engelbrecht, Ernie Els’s wine partner. I say ‘apparently’, as you have to
pay to get beyond the first sentence or so. Actually the entry I most wanted
to have a further look at was the one that dealt with his visit to what he
calls the ‘Poor-Vaardeberg region of Cape
Town’. Do you think he got lost in the suburbs and stumbled across something
new and exciting that we should know about?
