Melvyn Minnaar: The Defeat of Nederburg

The emotionally-charged Afrikaans word “nederlaag” keeps returning to my mind. It is a word that resonates with poetic sadness, nostalgia – much more than being a simple translation of “defeat”. I’m thinking, not for the first time in recent months, about Nederburg, feeling sad and nostalgic about the romantic wine highs of a great past.

The ring of the name Nederburg once signaled creativity, class, culture. Now, it seems to me, it suggests “defeat”. Perhaps “demise”.

The other day, low on the supermarket wine shelf was the familiar flourish of the name on a pair of screw-capped bottles. (As has happened so recklessly often in the past couple of years, the marketing people seem to have fiddled with the label design again.) The two seemed so lonely: a white Lyric and a red Duet.

The bottles bear a name that once was essentially a boasting masthead for the great and glorious of Cape Wine. Somewhere, on other shelves: Nederburg Stein, Rosé, Baronne, some ‘Winemasters’ (including the strange Double Barrel Reserve). Apparently Heritage Heroes (ironically named) and some Private Bins are available from the tasting room in Paarl and the Vinoteque. Pretty out of sight, if you ask me.

Since the sell-out of Distell, the name Nederburg is the real heartbreaker. Yes, in Nederburg’s “nederlaag”, defeat is more like a slow demise. Not sure the name will survive, given what certainly seems like a betrayal of its heritage and importance in South African wine history. (The way famous names like Zonnebloem and Fleur du Cap and the brandies have been treated, doesn’t bode well.)

If any wine brand reflected cultural elegance, it was Nederburg.

Nederburg held up its cultural and vinous status in numerous ways. In the arts there were the sought-after grand prizes for opera and ballet. There were Nederburg concerts and art. The wines were associated with creativity and discernment.

The great back story of the founding of the Paarl estate was polished and well presented, making Nederburg wines shine even brighter. With the manor house as setting, it maintained a cheerful golden narrative of that history to visitors. Whatever the actual state of the vineyards around the farm, the name brought prestige to the Paarl appellation when the region wasn’t much the viticultural mode.

There was, of course, the famous and fabulous Nederburg Auctions, first held exactly half a century ago this year. It was a deft move, using the Nederburg name that would prove to be a change of course for fine South African wine and the prices it could achieve in the right circumstances. That Saturday of the first auction on the Nederburg lawn in 1975 was a SA wine milestone.

At the helm of the winery then was the colourful Günter Brözel, a man who embodied the poetical and professionalism in the art of wine. He is the generous ghost who, today, inspires and spirits on the adventurers and avant-garde in Cape cellars. His Private Bin wines and the special releases were the foundation of the auction, but also pointers to fine-tuning and experiments. Some of these wines are benchmarks of local wine history: the noble Edelkeur, of course, but annual standouts of which Nederburg Selected Cabernet 1962 and Nederburg Steen 1974 (yes, chenin blanc!) are but two that linger in memory.

Famous wine personalities came to open, investigate, chit-chat and buy at the auctions. A flourish of creativity swept through the country’s fashion world as top designers brought their garments to the flashy show in Paarl. Awards were given. The name ‘Nederburg’ held it all.

The auction grew to become one of the world’s top social wine events. It did more for promoting local wine to the world than any other project, weaving wine excellence and the image of the historical brand into the fabric of other cultural fields. Nederburg then was highly polished. Until the bean counters pulled the plug.

When contemporary marketing “experts” talk about communicating the ‘stories’ of wine labels, the narrative of Nederburg is one for the books.

Sebastiaan Cornelis Nederburgh (1762 – 1811).

Carefully curated by the then Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery (before Distell), it honed the romantic tale of the founding of the Klein Drakenstein farm that Philippus Bernardus Wolvaart received from the Dutch East India Company in 1791. He named his estate after the commissioner-general at the Cape, Cornelis Nederburgh. And so the story unfolded over the decades.

Parallel to punting this exceptional wine history, SFW allowed Brözel and his team(s) to wow the wine world with smart wines. Production grew, but there was never a give-up on smaller, dedicated batches and reserve wines. This is the blueprint that his successors like the brilliant Razvan Macici took to new heights.

Now under the auspices of a beer trader, the glory has faded. The cultural submission of Nederburg is a forfeiture of brand, value and significance. (Being Dutch, the beer people may well understand what a “nederlaag” is.)

On that low shelf at PnP, the bottles the other day suggest that the music of Lyric and Duet is indeed a sad song. A dirge of defeat perhaps. The ‘nederlaag’ of Nederburg.

• Melvyn Minnaar has written about art and wine for various local and international publications over the years. The creativity that underpins these subjects is an enduring personal passion. He has served on a few “cultural committees”.