Letter from Portugal
Tuesday, 20 April, 2010
Neil Pendock
Neil Pendock bumps into the ghost of Beyers Truter in the Douro and
suggests a killer speaker for the Nederburg Auction.
They're still talking about Beyers and his braai at Quinta Nova de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, perched high on a hill above the Douro near Pinhão. How he arrived with his manne and his meat, his Frank Sinatra CDs and his way of speaking in tongues with a hot potato in his mouth, referring to all the hard g's in Afrikaans that offend the sillibant attuned Portuguese ear. Afrikaans nevertheless made it onto the label of the Quinta Nova Grainha range of wines, which translate grape pip into 18 languages from Moldavian to Chinese and Hebrew (no Arabic for obvious reasons). Although Beyers' contribution to this vinous Tower of Babel on a Bottle was the uncharacteristically conservative druiwesaad rather than the more pithy pitte.
Beyers for one, must be happy that Da Gama and Dias did not drop anchor at Bantry or Betty's Bay and settle in, back in the 15th century. For if they had, today he'd be known as Beyers Baga, as given the exaggerated rusticity of the great red grape of Bairrada, Abram Perold would have had no reason to cross Pinot Noir with Cinsault. Beyers could have embraced Baga and those culturally imperialistic UK wine writers, who trash Pinotage at every turn, could have carried on sniggering into their Riedels full of Riesling.
In fact Bairrada winemaker Carlos Campolargo already makes the emotional connection (hopefully soon to be confirmed by genetic evidence) between the great grape of Burgundy, Pinot Noir, and Baga. Although another Carlos, Carlos Lucas with a circular concrete cellar (the vinous version of the Guggenheim museum) on the next hill in Ois do Bairro, says he thinks Baga is the Portuguese Nebbiolo and has a couple of wines which make the point.
Circular Carlos is a frequent visitor to La Motte (he was in Franschhoek earlier this year and will be back in June clutching tickets to two Portugal world cup matches) and has a top secret wine project up his capacious wizard's sleeve. For a man who makes two vintages a year in Brazil, Baga in Bot River should be a cinch.
Beyers ended up at Quinta Nova because his UK partner, Simon Halliday and his Raisin Social company, were UK distributors for Amorim's showcase winery for a while. A firm friendship with Amorim's man in South Africa, Joaquim Sa (when your surname accords with the initials of your market, success is inevitable) advanced the cause which eventually saw a barrel of Touriga Naçional shipped to Stellenbosch to be blended with Pinotage. Although Beyers may have been better off with Baga, as the sea voyage was hard on the Touriga, with no Maderia effect measured.
Portugal is popping with South African connections. The country's most exciting vineyard proprietor is that King Croesus of the East Rand, Joe Berardo, who made the readies necessary to buy a 1,480 Renaissance palace cum quinta called Bacalhôa in Sétubal, by reclaiming the gold from the dumps of Springs and Nigel. Anglo American, who owned the under-utilized Ergo processing plant, offered him a 40:60 deal but golden tongued Joe persuaded Harry Oppenheimer his people had got the ratio the wrong way round.
Harry called him an extraordinary man (and a few other things besides) before agreeing and Joe saw his monthly salary, made selling vegetables to the mines, jump from R4000 (back in the early eighties when a doctor earned R500) to half a million. Not that Joe kept it all for himself. Hearing that the recently disgraced US President Richard Nixon was being chased for unpaid taxes, Joe sent a cheque for one month's salary. It was returned with a polite refusal (Joe wasn't a US citizen) but when Joe met Dick in the lift of the Hyde Park Hotel in London, his generosity was repaid with an invitation to the presidential suite for a bottle of champagne and two hours of face time with the most enigmatic politician of the 20th century.
Now that Distell has embarked on a serious effort to upgrade and re-glamorize the Nederburg Auction, transferring wine wunderkind De Bruyn Steenkamp from London as auction manager, the chance to sign Joe up as auction guest speaker is a no brainer. And for Joe, who emigrated to South Africa in 1963 and who still maintains a house and gold coloured Rolls Royce in Johannesburg, it will be simply coming home.