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Financial mail - Not just a fickle fashion
Delarey Brugman, great grandson of General Koos de la Rey of the Bok van Blerk banned Loftus anthem fame, was the first person to attempt to calculate the mathematical value of a rugby player.
John Woodward is equally pioneering – his Jo-Burg wine show was the first to offer retail sales to punters, an innovation quickly copied by the competition after their clinical attempts to get him busted for selling liquor without a license failed.
So it’s no surprise to report that these two entrepreneurs of the vine are the driving forces behind the FM Wine Business Awards, the first of which were handed out at a gala dinner at Gallagher Estate in Midrand at the end of June.
Wine competitions and awards are booming, with more than two dozen dishing out medals to wines and certificates to the people who make them. The latest competition is the first and, so far, only one to concentrate on the business aspect of the Bacchus business.
Kleine Zalze are the big corporate winners, with the trophy for Wine Company of the Year plus the Exporters Award. That’s great news for customers as Kobus Basson’s Stellenbosch winery makes some of the best value wines, with their Chenin Blanc a particular feature. Among individual awards, Bruce Jack of Flagstone and now Constellation, the King Kong of global wine producers, is a worthy Personality of the Year. Inge Gouws is an up-and-coming newcomer with a future as bubbly and bling as the French champagne she imports.
That Makro were voted Retailer of the Year is thanks to buyer Carolyn Barton and her in store experts. Likewise Alan Pick, on trade Personality of the Year, is the total antithesis of the Bruce Jack wine “Wallflower”.
Proprietor of the Butcher’s Shop & Grill in Sandton and the most successful bidder at the annual Cape Winemakers’ Guild Auction, Pick doesn’t sell a bottle of wine, he “sells the moment”.
The FM awards hit a spot other competitors just cant reach, rewarding efficiency over ego, financial viability over fickle fashion and giving traction to terroir – just what the customer ordered.
