LIQUID INVESTMENTS
MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Kanonkop has made a virtue out of flying under the radar
The Kanonkop wine estate has been a force in the Cape wine world since the early 1970s. This may not seem very long in an industry that has been around for more than 350 years, but it does date back to the beginning of the modern era. The first commercial bottlings of Kanonkop were produced in 1973. Before that the entire production was sold to wholesalers, whose brands represented more than 95% of all packaged wines sold in SA. The wine of origin legislation that came into law that year played a key role in breaking the virtual monopoly enjoyed by wholesale merchants. Kanonkop has always been the insider’s outsider in the wine industry. Owners Johann and Paul Krige inherited the vineyard through their mother, who was the daughter of Paul Sauer, a larger-than-life personality and politician who served as a cabinet minister from 1948 and continued as a senator until 1970.The decision to bottle some of the property’s wine in the 1970s could not have been undertaken lightly: the wholes...
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