Paul Oliver Sauer (1891 – 1976) was me and brother Paul’s grandfather from our mother’s side. Besides a rather colourful life he was a grape grower, a winemaker and a wine imbiber.
Below a few extracts from a speech delivered by AJ du Toit at the annual Anniversary ceremony at Groot Constantia on Saturday, 31 January 1976. At this ceremony the harvesting of the first grapes in South Africa was commemorated and the honorary award was given to Paul Oliver Sauer.
“Paul Oliver Sauer has passed away. South Africa has lost one of her biggest sons. The wine industry has lost a son, a leader and an honest wine lover. Today we are here to honour Paul Sauer. A short while before Sauer’s death, he told his daughter, Cato that this award is the biggest honour that he has ever received and that nothing in his career has been as important as this. After years of being involved in Politics, on his passport his profession was simply stated as: Farmer.
Anti Wine Snob
The Board of the KWV decided to honour Paul Sauer with the award because of the authority and honour he has brought the South African wine industry. Wherever he went, he encouraged the enjoyment of wine as a civilized drink. In a broadcast on the ‘Wines of South Africa’, former Senator Sauer said: ‘The South Africans are not a wine drinking nation and it should be our major endeavour to alter the pattern of refreshment in South Africa in order to make it one. Mr Sauer was an accomplished raconteur and enjoyed good wine, good food and good company. He abhorred artificialness and on one occasion took wine snobs severely to task. ‘The wine snob’, he remarked, ‘is generally as impossible, if not more impossible than any other kind of snob, and there is nothing he likes more than to give the ordinary person a feeling of inferiority’. ‘Don’t let him terrorize you with his superior airs. He is probably just trying to swank’. Try any wine, try them all, and if you find one which you like, stick to it. Drink it unashamedly, and the more you drink, the more you will like it’.
A Wine Family
Today it is very appropriate to bring homage to Mr Sauer here on Groot Constantia. His great-grandfather (on mother-side) was the renowned Hendrik Cloete, who sold wine to kings and princes. His mother was born on Groot Constantia and the farm was offered to his father, the well-known politician, JW Sauer, for ₤10 000. He however was of meaning that the price was too steep and rejected the offer. In 1903, his father bought Uitkyk, a farm located close to Stellenbosch. In 1930 it was sold by his mother, but Mr Sauer’s famous farm, Kanonkop, was kept as his inheritance. In 1922 he started farming. The first years was not very successful because of the major overproduction of grapes. This largely contributed to the fact that he tirelessly endeavoured to build an unwavering wine industry within SA.
Influence
For more than 9 years he served on one of the industry’s biggest wine wholesaler’s Board, the Stellenbosch Farmers Winery Pty (Ltd) and had a major part in the expansion of this organisation. This is just another example of the great influence he had in the South African wine industry. He was also one of the first farmers to plant Pinotage. So we can continue to share the major contributions Paul Sauer made to public life and especially the wine industry. After completing his formal schooling at SACS in Cape Town, he first attended the University of Cape Town and went on to complete a diploma course in Agriculture at the University of Stellenbosch.
Challenging Ignorance
His love for wine perhaps best exemplified by a quote from his previously mentioned broadcast on wines. ‘There is an abysmal ignorance, which is completely terrifying, about wine among the great majority of the people of South Africa. This ignorance not only terrifies me, but also seems to terrify most people to such an extent that they are afraid of drinking wine, because they are afraid that they might be drinking the wrong wine; and in any case they know so little about it that they treat it with a reverential respect, but from a distance’.
‘The answer has been found to this problem and we now produce a large number of common or garden light, young, wholesome, honest dry wines for everyday use. These wines are not the aristocrats, but one can’t have an aristocrat in the house every day, one would find him a rather expensive pastime, and one might be inclined to become a little blasé about ordinary people by over-indulgence in his company’.
Be honest and sincere in your enjoyment of wine. It is appropriate for kings and princes, but also makes of the poor man’s humble table, a feast. There is nothing forced in the civilized use of wine. And as wine differs from barrel to barrel, so will different tastes ask for different wines.
Paul Sauer is a monument for our wines."
Paul Sauer - The Wine
The first bottling of a Bordeaux style wine produced on Kanonkop was from the 1981 vintage – 5 years after Paul Sauer passed away, and it was named after the man - Paul Sauer. May this internationally acclaimed wine follow in the footsteps of its remarkable name sake!
