When two worlds collide
When two worlds collide
More and more wineries are springing art on the unsuspecting punter.
It was Lou Reed who advised punters to "take a walk on the wild side." Lou told readers of Time magazine about William Kentridge (in the Time 2009 list of the 100 most influential people in the world) and many followed his advice.
Like Anthony Hamilton Russell, who lists William as one of five SA artists he'd like to see on the back label of a vertical Pinot Noir collection 2005-2010, the others being Gail Caitlin, Beezy Bailey, Robert Hodgins and Zwelethu Mtetwa.
Six vintages, five artists, so perhaps famous Stellenbosch artist Portchie has a chance. "I plan to produce 200 six-bottle cases" declaims Hammo. "It will cost me R3.5 million, so I don't regard this as a money-making exercise."
Diamantaire Laurence Graff is also on message with both restaurant and tasting room at Delaire boasting smudgy charcoals. Perhaps it was a William that confused Constantia Uitsig's Dave McCay, when he fell into the feng shui water furrow between the restaurant and tasting venue. It couldn't have been a Dylan Lewis big cat sculpture, as they're all outside lurking in the garden, dodging the Fine Art Sanhedrin who disapprove. Not that this deters collectors Johann Rupert, Paul Harris and the Oppenheimers.
Feng shui furrows were pioneered by Uitkyk, which caused UK design god Terence Conran to exclaim "oh, look, a communal pissoir, how daring!" when he visited the Design Indaba a few years back to demolish Carrol Boyes and her pewter wares after rudely deconstructing an SA Chefs' Association banquet the previous evening.
Tasting rooms all over the Cape are trojan horses, inflicting Art on unsuspecting punters. Some, like Donald Hess's Glen Carlou operation in Paarl, have the good sense to segregate Art from Wine. But when your major work is a sand sculpture by Scottish landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy, you're asking for trouble in a tasting room frequented by students on heavy reds. Heck the membrum virilis was ripped off one of Deryck Healey's life-size nudes by a crazed Paarl poppie shortly after the exhibition opened.
Nick van Huyssteen devotes the first floor of Saronsberg to Art and terroir is respected by paintings from Tulbagh's favourite son, Christo Coetzee. I remember hesitantly knocking on Christo's door in Church Street, kitty-corners to the Paddagang Restaurant, being examined for several minutes through the net curtain before the reclusive artist threw open the door and ushered us into his dark lounge with Cyndi Lauper on the video.
Fellow Christo collector Hannes Myburgh had tipped me off that the artist would not be around for much longer. Christo had been a hero ever since I read he'd destroyed a gallery full of his own art, thereby making the point that the artist never relinquishes control over his art. Thank heavens the same does not apply to Wine or we'd have visits from André van Rensburg and Eben Sadie.
The latest Art trojan horse is the Glenelly winery of May-Eliane de Lencquesaing, grand octogenarian and former châtelaine of second growth estate Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. She's brought over some medieval tapestries, a wonky cupboard and a couple of cartoons of Bordeaux and adopted 25-year old Cape Town Vicky Sanders under her wing. Vicky's colourfield blobs chirp up the fearsomely functional cellar and Madame seems to have turned her hand to clothes design too, if the eye-matching blue chemise worn by winemaker Cool-Hand Luke O'Cuinneagain, is anything to go by.
Pendock's Plonk: Glenelly Hills 2006. Finely fruited, expensively oaked blend of Cabernet, Shiraz, Merlot and Petit Verdot, the latter supplying unexpected excitement to an otherwise bog-standard Australian recipe, blended by Swartland superman Adi Badenhorst.
