It’s well over a year since the Johannesburg artist Alan Crump passed away. Here is a column I wrote for WINE magazine that was a sort-of obituary. The charcoal of Alan (below) is by Diane Victor.

Quite what to serve with lobster thermidor was answered over dinner at Assaggi, best restaurant in Johannesburg. I’d been reading the New York Times obituary of Maxime de la Falaise, celebrated fashion model, artists’ muse (Max Ernst, Louis Malle and Andy Warhol) who died at the end of April 2009. The day before my friend Alan Crump, gifted water colourist, heroic smoker and former head of fine art at Wits passed away from cancer.

Ms. de la Falaise was the daughter of Rhoda, a famous eccentric Irish beauty, who “would make fish stew and sometimes forget that she was making it for the garden. So she would add a bit of cognac, some garlic and spices. The roses would almost cry out with pleasure.” Maxime was also the chef consulted by Andy to design menus for his avant-garde Andy-Mat, one of those coin-operated glass and chrome food vending machines built by Horn and Hardart and installed in the Art Deco public palaces of Philadelphia and Manhattan before the last depression.

Imagine inserting a quarter for a serving of one of the medieval delights from Maxime’s Seven Centuries of English Cooking (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973). Like crane in a pot: “take a crane, and unfolde his legges, and cut off his wynges and his legges, and sauce him with poudres of ginger, mustard, vynegre and salte.”

At Assaggi, I’d also settled on fowl in the shape of Luciana Righi’s chicken roll stuffed with spinach, porcini and black olives. Along with a bottle of Ducru Beaucaillou ’98 (duty free ex Hong Kong airport) which started out tightly peppery and black leather before opening up into a pencil box of minerality.

To start, fresh asparagus spears served on bruschetta topped with slivers of Parmesan, a fried free-range egg, liberally drizzled with truffle oil and a bottle of Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Millénaires Brut 1985 on the side. The delicate bead of bubbles was not so much froth as part of the wine’s inner essence. Sublime with asparagus and a suitably subtle fizz that would not shock Rhoda’s roses.

Maxime herself was more of a party girl with “a watermelon filled with chilled vodka” a favourite cocktail. Daughter Loulou was muse to Fashion God Yves Saint Laurent. Which comes as no surprise with Maxime as mom and French nobleman Marquis le Bailly de la Falaise de la Coudraye, as père plus she was baptized with Schiaparelli’s Shocking perfume instead of holy water and YSL was very religious.

YSL was also possessed of a keen insight into what makes frocks function. As The Times noted “what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it. It helps that she is beautiful, that she moves with cat-like grace and that she is tall and well proportioned, although under-represented in two crucial areas: ‘what are those?’ YSL once asked [supermodel] Marie Helvin, pointing at her breasts.”

A similar phenomenon can be observed at the fashionable fringes of SA wine with the highest rated cuvées produced by the most winsome winemakers.

The last time I saw Alan was the memorial for photographer Andrew Meintjes, murdered in his Braamfontein studio. Held in the rose garden at Emmarentia Dam, I had not thought to bring along lobster thermidor or Blanc de Millénaires Brut, so Alan had to make do with a couple of bottles of Springfield Chardonnay as we sheltered under the shady oaks while Andrew’s friends and family sat on blankets in the sun, listening to Jennifer Ferguson.