WESTERN CAPE
Delheim. Sperling, tasked with recruiting members, sent a questionnaire to 15 private wine cellars in the district to gauge interest. After a long wait, exactly one farm replied. Undeterred, the three went canvassing door to door instead, and the personal approach worked. By April 1971, eleven farms had signed on, and Stellenbosch Wine Routes was officially approved.
Fighting the Bureaucracy Getting farms on board was only half the battle. The new wine route had no road signage to guide visitors to its cellar doors, and state road authorities weren’ t keen to help. The troika pushed through regardless and, as local legend has it, their signage was finally approved in the late 1970s, only after the then national Minister of Transport got lost trying to find Delheim himself!
Liquor laws proved just as stubborn. Even after approval, the 11 founding members were restricted to selling a combined 3 000 cases of wine a year at their cellar doors; a limit so unrealistic that Spier, Simonsig and Delheim were each individually producing more than that alone. Tastings weren’ t permitted, and the 12-bottle minimum purchase remained in place. It took the trio’ s persistence and no small amount of charm with the liquor authorities to have these restrictions gradually relaxed.
A Legacy Still Being Poured What began as three friends and 11 farms circumventing red tape has grown into a network representing more than 200 producers across five subroutes: Bottelary Hills, Greater Simonsberg, Helderberg, Stellenbosch Valley and Stellenbosch Berg. Every cellar door, tasting room and wine-and-food pairing menu across the Cape Winelands today owes something to the troika’ s refusal to take no for an answer.
So, next time you’ re winding along the R44 in search of your next Cape Blend, spare a thought for the late members of the troika: Frans Malan, Niel Joubert and Spatz Sperling – three farmers who, 55 years ago, decided that South Africans deserved to taste wine where it was made, and were bloody-minded enough to make that happen.