Günter Brözel
He introduced SA to the delights of Noble Late Harvest - an act that contributed to the start of the Nederburg Auction. Jos Baker retraces past pleasures with Günter Brözel.
The man who became a legend in his lifetime has turned his back on winemaking. And "don't resurrect me!" is his reaction to a request for an interview.
Twice Diners Club Winemaker of the Year - in 1983 for a Rhine Riesling and '85 for a Gewürztraminer - Günter Brözel has swapped the mouthfilling appeal of fermented grapes for the tactile pleasures of timber. True, his cellar abuts his workroom, but I have the feeling that those carefully labelled pieces of raw wood, waiting for the pattern of the grain to be released, rank higher in priority.
We reminisce over his favourite morning wine, a delicate Riesling Auslese from the Mosel, "excellently suited for slow sipping and leisurely hours of conversation". As opinionated as ever, Günter admits he can't keep his bek shut, castigating local winemakers for eschewing ultra-elegant light whites and snorting at their "excuse" that full ripeness presupposes high alcohols.
As for over-wooding, he maintains it's "cheaper to chew a broomstick" than drink some South African wines. And he is still vehemently against the use of corks. "We're taming the wine in the barrel so that it lasts forever - except that we're closing the bottles with corks. A wine's life is terminated by its relationship with the cork, not by its breeding."
Recruited to Nederburg in 1956 on the death of the heir apparent, Arnold Graue, German-born Günter brought with him exacting standards of winemaking that, in his 33 years with the company, won Nederburg wines over 950 gold medals in this country and abroad. He was the first South African winner of the prestigious Mondavi trophy for Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine and Spirit Competition (London) in 1985, and his '83 Bukettraube Noble Late Harvest, '84 Gewürz and '74 Nederburg Auction Cabernet were class winners in the same competition. The '74, still drinking deliciously now, is the vintage that has given him the greatest satisfaction: "All the co-ordinates came together."
While wine is still part of his life, and he respects what Diners Club is doing to encourage quality and an osmosis of international ideas, Günter's only link to the industry today is in cellar design. Currently working on the Vrede en Lust cellar at Simondium, he emphasises that practical working cellars are his forte. Not pretentious monuments to wealth.
Totally against ostentation, his message to winemakers is simple: "Make the product more accessible. Let the young get a giggle out of it." Vigorously opposed to elitism, he describes winespeak as "an avalanche rolling down every descriptive mountain".
The images that characterised his wine-tastings were never dull, whether flights of fancy that likened reds to noble knights and whites to enticing ladies, or ridicule poured on "that butter business" in relation to Chardonnay. In fact he's anti-Chardonnay, maintaining that the grape has no character - "if it had, the French wouldn't use it for Champagne". His varietal vote goes to Sauvignon Blanc, "a grape of taste and style, able to achieve complexity without wood".
He condemns greed for exports at the expense of the local market and deplores the commercial trend to "selling our heritage and character by putting the epaulettes of the French Foreign Legion on it". In his view, our soils and microclimates are unique and should be exploited. We should be building a South African identity, spearheaded by Pinotage and versatile Chenin Blanc, and offering something unique to the international marketplace.
He speaks with experience. For it was Günter who developed Edelkeur in 1969 - and fell foul of the law. Existing legislation (Act No 25 of 1957) restricted the residual sweetness of natural wines to 20g/l. By its very nature Noble Late Harvest could not conform. With the help of Nietvoorbij, the law was changed. "We stretched the style of South African wines enormously, even though we had to contend with a lot of birth control," he jokes. And he adds with amusement that the authorities, searching for a generic term for NLH many years later, attempted to annex the name Edelkeur - to be soundly routed by Nederburg.
It was Edelkeur that led indirectly to the Nederburg Auction, crystallising plans for an annual auction as a platform for rare and innovative wines, and creating an avenue for the unique Noble Late Harvest to become widely known.
Though he returned to centre stage to make the opening speech at the 25th anniversary of the Auction, Günter prefers to stay out of the limelight. He's happy in his workroom and establishing the garden of his new house in Somerset West, where the vegetables prove he's not lost his green touch. For nature was basic to his winemaking practices and rejection of chaptalisation. In his view, "we should build our wines on nature's own produce".
As for the SFW-Distillers tie-up, he sends me off with an "I told you so" ringing in my ears. He predicted the merger in 1980.
