Nederburg Auction 2011 Image Gallery

See the gallery of photographs that captured just some of the various highlights of the 2011 Nederburg Auction, which took place out at the Nederburg Winery in Paarl on the 16th & 17th of September 2011.

The Wine Selection Process

Hundreds tasted…only the best make it.

Wines that are submitted for the Nederburg Auction are stringently assessed by a selection panel consisting of winemakers, viticulturists, Cape wine masters, wine consultants and wine judges. Three groups of tasters preside at blind tastings, chaired to ensure absolute anonymity and impartiality and the integrity of the selection process. Each wine is tasted twice by different panels, and the results are audited to determine a fair result.

Every single case that has passed the panel tasting is opened to verify the number of bottles and the level of the wine they contain before they receive the seal of approval. These bottles bear an additional label, providing the date of the particular Auction at which they will be sold.

A full range of Auction wines is presented to the Auctioneer in order for him to prepare his notes. Pre-auction tastings of these wines by potential buyers are also an absolute essential if the buyers are to know what they are bidding for. Apart from the regional tastings, buyers are also afforded an opportunity to taste the wine line-up on the morning of the auction.
As part of the auction’s mandate to offer only the finest, rare wines, the assessment criteria for 2011’s event has been further refined and for the first time sommeliers with international exposure have been brought onto the tasting panels to fine-tune selection.

With sommeliers playing an increasingly influential role in the composition of wine lists around the country, the auction invited four highly respected palates to participate in the judging of wines submitted for the 2011 Nederburg Auction.
Chosen both for their exposure to wines of excellence from across the world and their focus on matching wines with food, they brought an interesting new perspective to the judging process. Together with the auction’s panellists of winemakers and Cape Wine Masters, their fresh insights injected new vigour and rigour, helping to enhance this year’s selection criteria. The final offering of 159 wines is 15% less than 2010, but it is a selection that reflects the rare, fine vintages that the auction strives to showcase.

Mauritian-born Miguel Chan is the group sommelier for Southern Suns Hotels and has excelled in a range of international competitive sommelier events. He is a taster for the Platter’s South African Wine Guide and a judge in several wine competitions. Neil Grant, who trained in the US, is based at the much-awarded Rust & Vrede restaurant in Stellenbosch. Mia Mårtensson studied in Sweden and worked in that country’s top-rated restaurants before coming to South Africa. She is now a member of the Winery of Good Hope team but still retains her involvement with the Scandinavian Sommelier Association and is active in promoting wine education in the local on-trade. German-trained Jὃrg Pfȕtzner, formerly of Aubergine Restaurant that is celebrated for its wine list is also a taster for Platter’s He consults to private collectors and is a mentor to many South African sommeliers in training.

A good year to start a fine wine auction

The year 1975 was responsible for a number of significant events on the timeline that makes up mankind’s history. Proclaimed by the United Nations as International Women’s Year, it also fell in the middle of a period nostalgically known as the greatest music decade of all time, with disco, glam rock and punk music leading the way, but followed closely by the emerging genres of reggae, hip hop and heavy metal – the success of British heavy metal rock group Led Zeppelin, who released the album Physical Graffiti on the 15th March 1975 and became the first band ever to have six albums in the US chart simultaneously, is well documented.
That same year, in another first that was perhaps not quite as musically explosive but significant nonetheless, the very first Nederburg Auction of rare Cape wines took place at Nederburg in Paarl. From a simple beginning that saw 15 wines knocked down for R237 000, the auction has evolved over nearly four decades into a significant event on the local and international wine calendar that is known for showcasing only the cream of South Africa’s finest wines.

A Story of Edelkeur

Günter Brözel, Nederburg’s cellarmaster for 33 years until his retirement in 1989, was the creator of the famous Nederburg Edelkeur that was showcased at the first Nederburg Auction. He had a vision of making wine from grapes with Botrytis cinerea (noble rot). This sweet wine so obsessed its creator that he vowed to move heaven and earth, just to ensure that legal restrictions (on sugar content) would not thwart his dream. Undaunted by the stipulation in Act No. 25 of 1957 which prohibited the production of natural wine with a sugar content above 30 grams per litre.
The Golden Liquid Nederburg Edelkeur was made in the same style as the German Trockenbeerenauslese, the French Sauternes and the Hungarian Tokay. In 1972 Nederburg entered the 1969 Edelkeur in an international wine competition in Budapest – and was judged best wine at the show. Then followed a gold medal at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London, and designation as champion South African white wine for five years in a row. Edelkeur has collectively won 14 gold medals at the prestigious International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC)in. Edelkeur retains the status of having been the first of its kind in South Africa and it still fetches some of the highest prices for white wine in South Africa.
Brözel was the first South African to win the Winemaker of the Year Award at the International Wine and Spirits Competition in 1985. He was the first to make the Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc blend, which later became a global trendsetter. The doyen of the South African wine industry, Brözel was guest speaker at the 25th anniversary of the auction in 1999.
At the first Nederburg Auction in 1975 the total income amounted to R237 000, for which 12 400 cases of wine had been sold, but individual prices in many instances were disappointing. Edelkeur, to the intense chagrin of Brözel, who had produced it with such skill, was sold for no more than the price of Lieberstein, the local popular wine, which made nonsense of the decision that no reserve prise should be placed on any Nederburg product.
But there was no stopping the ideas and ambitions of this now legendary cellar-master. Bearing in mind that one of the main purposes of the Auction was to make rare wines available and that another was to test the tastes and fashions of consumers, he decided at the Auction of 1977 to use the occasion as a platform for the new styles of wine he was creating. Some might be high in sugar, others low, some would be deep in colour, some robust in character, they might be smooth, wood matured or blended….. The problem was how to name these new and varied innovations, for the company’s registered trademarks were inadequate for the considerable number of new wines being produced. Eventually it was decided to give a certain range of numbers – 100 to 200 – to red wines, with the added prefix of the initial letter ‘R’ (for red); dry white wines would be numbered 201 – 300, prefixed by the letter ‘D’ (for dry); and the romantic late harvest and semi-sweets would be allocated the range from 301 – 400, prefixed by ‘S’, which stood for either ‘Sweet’ or ‘Soet’. This numbering system is still in use today. And all the wines were given an added exclusivity by the label ‘Private Bin’. Highly sought-after at that Auction and at the subsequent ones, these wines are – in the delightful and characteristic words of Brözel himself – ‘small in measure – but, oho, the quality!’

2010: Keynote Presentation

Marie Nygren, Vice President and Director of Purchases and Supply Chain Management and Sara Norell, Head of Purchasing in the Supply Chain Management division from Systembolaget AB, the Swedish retail Alcohol Monopoly, were this year’s keynote speakers. They attributed the success of South African wine in the Swedish market to the full bodied wines produced here and the customer-driven focus of local producers. South Africa is the biggest category of imported wines in Sweden.

Download the Keynote Presentation

Nederburg Auction 2010 Image Gallery

These are just a few of the many highlights that played out over the 2010 Nederburg Auction, however perhaps it’s best to let the photo’s speak for themselves. - a picture does after all speak more than a thousand words.

Chateau Lagrange 1986 fetches R60 000 on 2010 Charity Auction

Mezzo-soprano Hannelie Rupert-Koegelenberg and her husband Hein of La Motte wine farm were the biggest buyers at this year’s Nederburg Charity Auction on Saturday 4 September, contributing over R100 000. This is the second year in a row that the Koegelenbergs have generously donated to the charity sale, which this year raised close to R170 000 for three community-based projects – the Goedgedacht Trust, Pebbles Project and World Vision South Africa, Mbekweni.

The highest price for a single lot was R60 000, paid by Hanneli-Rupert Koegelenberg for an imperial bottle of Chateau Lagrange 1986, donated by Mark Norrish. Interestingly, this item first featured on the Charity Auction in 2000. It was donated by the guest speaker that year, Mr Shin Torii, president of Suntory, Japan, and purchased by Mark Norrish for R10 000.

The Koegelenbergs also bought three other items, including a rare bottle of Chateaux Margaux 1959, donated by Duimpie Bayly on behalf of The Tabernacle at Distell, a bottle of Chateau Latour 1986, donated by this year’s auctioneer Anthony Barne, and a bottle of Madeira 1840 “The Rebel”, the oldest item on the auction that was donated by veteran Patrick Grubb, the original auctioneer at Nederburg.

Ray Edwards from Spar snapped up a 2007 single-vineyard Shiraz from Nederburg, labelled Tribute and donated by Nederburg cellarmaster Razvan Macici, for R17 000. This is the second of three sets that were specifically released for the auction, each comprising eight bottles, ranging in size from the standard 750 ml to the 18 litre Melchior. The first of three sets debuted on the 2009 Charity Auction and included a magnum, double magnum, Jereboam, Rehoboam, imperial, Methuselah, Balthazar and more, to make up 65,25 litres in all. Every bottle within the set has been individually boxed. The remaining set will be auctioned in 2011.

Over the past twenty years, the charity auction has raised more than R3 million for its beneficiaries, which included the Hospice Palliative Care Association, the Organ Donor Foundation and mothers2mothers (m2m).

Telling it like it is

When last did you see a wine label that literally follows the rule of “what you see is what you get.”? No frills. No Latin. No French or other foreign name.

If straight talking is your preference, you might want to look into Rijk Tulbagh’s Vol Soet Chenin Blanc 1997, an exciting new fortified wine set to debut on the upcoming Nederburg Auction.

Aged for 12 years in small oak before considered ready to show its luscious face, this is no gawky adolescent. It’s rich, full palate of fruit and nuts is said to end in a surprisingly dry and long finish. Grapes harvested at full ripeness were picked from vines growing on the flood plains of the Klein Berg River and protected by the peaks of the Obiqua, Winterhoek and Witzenberg mountains. Just 5 000 litres of the full and sweet reserve wine have been made with 20 6-bottle cases available on this year’s auction.

Another newcomer to this September’s showcase is Mountain Oaks, also the first winery to have an organically-grown and organically produced wine come under the hammer in the 36-year history of the event. The Slanghoek winery, accredited by the Norwegian Debio certification authorities, has produced a Chenin Blanc Reserve 2005 from vines that, according to owner Mark Stevens, are now between 60 and 90 years old. Originally bush vines, they have been trellised “to keep them going”, he explains, and receive water just once in the season before harvest.

He and his wife, Christine, who is the winemaker, bought the farm in 1999 and have been producing wines here since 2003, mentored by the late Ross Gower. Stevens says the wine, which is “on the dry side” has been variously described by journalists lucky enough to have sampled it, as “complex, very interesting and absolutely exquisite.”

There are three other newbies to watch out for, including the maiden vintage Seven Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz Reserve 2004 from Francois Agenbag, a previous winner of the Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year Award.

Another example of telling it like it is, when owner Patrick Pols counted seven oaks on the Breedekloof farm, his wife, Jacqui decided that was enough to clinch the name of the property. Fifteen 6-bottle cases of the multi-award-winner will be on offer.

Vrede en Lust, owned by the Buys family and already establishing a sound prize-winning pedigree, is introducing a Sauvignon Blanc 2007, as well as a Viognier 2008 to auction-bidders. There will be 10 6-bottle cases of each.

Vilafonté, the collaborative label of Zelma Long, often referred to as America’s first lady of wine; her husband, Phil Freese, an internationally respected viticulturist; and South African Mike Ratcliffe, is represented by 20 6-bottle cases of the Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated blend, Series C 2003.

Wines on offer can be purchased by members of the trade with a liquor licence, as well by anyone who belongs to the Vinotèque Wine Bank.

Details of these and other wines to be auctioned at Nederburg on Friday, September 3 and Saturday, September 4 can be found by going to the Wines on Auction page.