MICHAEL FRIDJHON

Foreign owners of Cape wine properties tend to be big investors. A few make boutique-style purchases, possibly because those who are buying only a few hectares of vineyard are thinking of a lifestyle acquisition rather than a commercial opportunity. But if you are in the wine business abroad and you are shopping for property in the Cape, you are acquiring a long-distance management problem, so you may as well make it worth your while.

Of course, they are also buying with hard currency, which may make the numbers more attractive initially. Still, if you cannot sell your wines profitably and the losses start to pile up, the pain will become real enough and soon enough. Hard currency purchases in weaker currency businesses may also seem cheaper when it comes to the initial acquisition, but the payback — in devalued and potentially devaluing currency — doesn’t translate into great dividends.

Some of this inequality can be ironed out if the foreign buyers are already in the international wine business with their own distribution networks. This means they can insert wines deriving from rand investment/production costs into their existing channels and make them pay. Advini, an important French producer-wholesaler with properties and cellars in the Rhone and Burgundy, has been mopping up mid- to high-end Cape estates and wineries, expanding its export reach while doing a great job of maintaining its domestic presence. Le Bonheur, L’Avenir, Ken Forrester, Kleine Zalze — to name a few — fit comfortably in the Advini portfolio.

There are also foreign owners who have simply fallen in love with the Cape winelands, are confident they know enough about the business to make the investment a sensible throw of the dice, and then get on with it. This scenario would properly describe how Hubert de Bouard of Chateau Angelus and Bruno Prats of Cos d’Estournel in Bordeaux landed up in partnership with the Joostes of Klein Constantia/Anwilka and now remain co-owners with Zdenĕk Bakala and Charles Harman.

It doesn’t fully describe what motivated May-Eliane de Lencquesaing to buy the Glenelly farm in Stellenbosch a few years before her 80th birthday. True, she had come to love the Cape and had sufficient faith in the future of the wine industry to undertake the daunting task of establishing a wine estate where previously there had been a run-down fruit farm. The appeal was more substantial than this. Coming from Chateau Pichon Lalande (and other family estates in Bordeaux) she saw an opportunity in the less stratified New World of building a vinous legacy unconstrained by the constraints of tradition.

But none of these come close to explaining why Friederich-Wilhelm Dauphin acquired Allée Bleue in Franschhoek just more than 25 years ago. The Dauphins’ story is that he bought it as a Valentine’s Day present for his wife, Elke. Since it could hardly have been a frivolous amount, even for a euro billionaire, one must assume the family had a plan for the property, one of the Cape’s oldest estates.

The adage that it takes twice as long and costs three times as much probably applies here. Vineyards have been replanted (with more to come) and money has been spent on making Allée Bleue a destination for food, wine and farm produce. The same winemaking (Van Zyl du Toit) and viticultural team (Douw Wilhelmse) has been there for 15-20 years. Clearly, the overall quality improvement evident from my most recent tastings serves to confirm the investments have been money well spent.

At a recent range line-up, the wines that made the greatest impression were the 2023 cap classique (great purity, fresh and with a hint of salinity), the 2025 chenin blanc (textural, intense and fabulous value), the Estate 2025 and the Isabeau 2023 chardonnays, the 2024 pinotage and the quite extraordinary Old Vine cinsaut 2024 (made from Piekenierskloof fruit). Clearly the Dauphins did have a plan. They eschewed the flashy launch, the promise of great things to come and chose instead a quiet, solid upward trajectory.