MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Some of SA’s finest old wines are going on the block
A treasure trove is being sampled, rebottled and recorked and will be sold to the highest bidder
The first recorded wine advice appears in the Bible in Luke 5:39 “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, ‘The old is better.” As a rule of thumb it served mankind well enough for roughly 2,000 years. Then late in the 20th century the opposite became fashionable — at least in SA. No-one wanted mature wine, and the price of a current release was higher than the shelf price of the previous vintage.
Since then the pendulum has moved back — not all the way, but far enough for there to be a heightened respect for the achievements of the winemakers of the early modern era of Cape wine. This has not been instantaneous: the Old Wine Tastings which preceded the annual judging of The Trophy Wine Show created a groundswell which in time altered perceptions at home and abroad...
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