Dalene Steyn, WOSA’s erstwhile wonder woman of wine recently resigned, has popped up at the Nederburg Auction, helping Carina Gous run this year’s event. I interview Carina in the Sunday Times on the weekend.

Q: You have appointed a British firm of auctioneers to run the business side of the Auction. What is your thinking behind this?

A: With the Nederburg brand, and by extension, the Nederburg Auction, enjoying a higher international visibility than ever before, we approached one of the leading international auction houses to assist us. Anthony Barne is a Master of Wine with over 30 years in the wine industry in the UK, still the world’s biggest market for wine. He has extensive international experience, serves as a wine judge and heads Bonham’s wine department. Bonham is one of Britain’s leading auction houses and holds major auctions of wine in the UK, US and Hong Kong.

Q: The Cape Winemakers’ Guild Auction attracts a lot of publicity. Do you see it as competition?

A: The two auctions are very different from one another. The Cape Winemakers’ Guild Auction is a platform for wines produced by its members especially for this purpose. The Nederburg Auction on the other hand is an auction open to the entire South African wine industry. A broad representation of wine producers is invited to enter wines for the Auction. The Nederburg Auction panel then selects a spectrum of wines entered to offer bidders. Some are made exclusively for sale via this channel, others are specially aged wines previously in general circulation but currently harder to access and thus of great interest to aficionados.

The Nederburg Auction mainly targets the wine business fraternity, selling only to licensees representing retail or on-consumption outlets whereas the Guild sells a large proportion of its wines directly to the public.

The other major difference is that the Nederburg Auction lots sizes are structured to cater to both the specialty and mainstream markets. Nederburg Auction wines will thus find their way onto the shelves of specialist purveyors or the wine lists of fine dining establishments, as well as to the aisles of some of the liquor and supermarket chains in their specialty departments.

The Nederburg Auction’s overriding imperative is to make rare South African wines of excellence and distinction available to a broad audience.

Q: By limiting bidding to restaurateurs and retailers hard hit by the current economic downturn are you not unnecessarily handicapping yourself?

A: The market is always the final arbiter in these matters. Bidders will buy at prices they deem fair so they in return can realise their investment when they sell on to the public.

Q: How does the person-in-the-street buy wine at the Auction and can they taste the wines on offer?

A: Members of the public are invited to book through Computicket for the evening pre-Auction public tastings to be held in Cape Town on July 15 and Johannesburg on July 21, giving them an opportunity to taste and identify what they would potentially like to buy or select from a wine menu. They are then able to liaise with their local stockists or restaurateurs and ask them to bid for these wines on their behalf. Members of the trade who buy regularly on the Nederburg Auction have often remarked on how this forum has provided an extremely useful basis for communication with their customers.

Winelovers who are members of the Vinoteque will also be able to buy wines of interest to them via the Vinoteque.