About Us
There is not much doubt that most red wines are drunk far too early. The absolute joy of tasting and drinking a wine when it has reached its optimum maturity is difficult to describe. How often have I cursed myself when I drink the last bottle from a good vintage for not buying more to start with. I think one should buy at least a dozen of a such wines and drink one per six months or even one per year, thus tracking its development. Of course premium wine prices are too high for most of us to buy volumes of them; but even mid-level wines will develop over time into a more integrated and finer products. I had the wonderful experience of discovering a 2001 mid-level Pinot Noir in my cellar recently which blew me away with the smooth and well balanced wine it had developed into. I would never have thought that a wine that cost me a tenner in 2003 could have transformed in the way it did. Your cellar may be the best room in your house, use it to the full!
1974
The fascination with wine all started in 1974 when buying, and celebrating my first credit card which came with a student loan, a case of 1972 Zonnenbloem Cabernet Sauvignon in Sunnyside, Pretoria. We drank the last bottle when the Springboks won the 1995 Rugby World Cup; what an investment that proved to be, I should have bought 5 or 10 cases, the price was only R30 per case (about £15 in those days of the strong SA Rand).
1980
In 1980 we, my good friend and fellow student Pierre van Zyl (who sadly passed away on Christmas day 2018) and I started our first restaurant, Eagles for Steaks in Welkom in the Orange Free State. Very soon after we installed a little wine cellar and we filled it with some of the famous wines of the time in SA; Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 1976 and 1980 vintages (that was when the 1980 Meerlust Rubicon changed the landscape of South African wine forever when it was released in 1984) and most of the best reds from suppliers Distillers and Stellenbosch Farmers Wineries.
In no time we became known as the go-to restaurant if you want more than a one dimensional wine list. A succession of bars and restaurants followed;
The Roxy Rhythm Bar in Melville Jhb in 1985 with a consortium of friends and investors (yes, even at the Roxy you could order a good mature bottle of red), Browns of Rivonia in 1993 (with its famous 50 seater wine cellar that housed thousands of bottles of the good stuff) with friends Mark Batchelor and Lex Henning.
2003
Finally in 2003 Vivat Bacchus in London, with Mark Batchelor and long time colleague and restauranteur Neleen Strauss, now part owner of the fabulous High Timber Restaurant on the north bank of the Thames in London. The common thread in all these ventures was that mature wines were available and the wine cellar became our biggest asset, as important and vital to our success as our chefs and other staff. Rare & Fine Cape Wines will operate along the same lines. We aim to offer current vintages of wines that we think are worth cellaring and we offer mature wines for those special occasions when the wine is an important part of a celebration or meal or an important classy gift. Of course we offer quaffers as well because not every occasion requires a landmark wine; at times life dictates that one just needs a glass of wine at the end of the day, while, over weekends, very importantly, a glass or two is required when the meat comes off the braai.
Gerrie Knoetze