Wine Investment in South Africa - Cape Wine Academy

Paul Sauer. It takes time to become an icon, maybe 20 years of quality. An icon wine
to me is ‘time over price over quality’. There are many more icons than people think,
like Neil Ellis, Steytler Vision, Boekenhoutskloof, Galpin Peak, my own ‘Diesel’,
LeRiche…
I wanted to introduce a Grand Cru, 1er Cru, 2 nd Cru system for the Pinotage
Association to establish quality levels and get people to fight for wine improvement,
but it didn’t happen.
Why is there currently little or no investment in SA wines
I think we’re missing out. I missed out in 1986. Jan Coetzee wanted me to go halves
with him in buying 300 cases of Kanonkop’s Paul Sauer en primeur at R87 a case. It
meant parting with R13,000. I didn’t and then it got rave reviews and within four
months was selling at R400 a case. I could have made R47,000 profit – and that was in
1987!
I thought about doing it with my own stock, it could sell for much higher prices, but I
can’t, or won’t hold stock back to sell later for a higher price, it would upset my
customers – it’s basically screwing them. ‘Diesel’ Pinotage could easily sell at R750 a
bottle a year or two after initial release.
And what hope is there for future wine investment
There is a secondary trade market, I can prove it, I just haven’t made any money out
of it. A futures market is coming, but only for some wineries.
Do you mean like the Cape Winemakers Guild auctions
Yes. Some wanted it to create a secondary trade. But you could argue things have
changed and ask how genuine it is in its original intent. I do it for charity, but it is a lot
of hard work. For some wine farms it is absolutely necessary to sell their wines and
raise their profile. For them it is a shop window.
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