Spatz Sperling: Wine iconoclast who stomped on snobbery 1930-2017
Larger than life, the ‘difficult German’ revolutionised the local industry
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Michael Hans “Spatz” Sperling, who has died in Stellenbosch at the age of 87, demystified and popularised wine in South Africa.
He founded the Delheim wine estate on the slopes of the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch, and was involved in starting the world-famous Stellenbosch Wine Route, which turned Cape wine farms into some of the biggest money-spinners of the local tourism industry.
Sperling was born in Germany on July 19 1930. He grew up on an estate in East Prussia which was lost to the advancing Russian army near the end of World War 2.
He and his mother and two siblings fled to Dresden, where they survived the destruction of the city by Allied bombers in February 1945. His father was executed by partisans in Czechoslovakia.
After the war Sperling worked on a farm for a bit and then moved to South Africa at the age of 20 in 1951.
“There was no work or labour and Germany was in ruins,” he said.
He stayed on his aunt Del’s farm De Driesprong. Along with grapes they grew vegetables, which they sold at the station market in Rondebosch every Friday for a pittance.
Although he had no background in it, he began making wine. He subsequently renamed the farm Delheim (Del’s home) in honour of his aunt, and developed it into one of the most famous wine estates in the country.
There were very few independently produced wines when he started.
Producing wholesalers dominated the supply chain. Farmers who wanted to bottle under their own label were threatened by the Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery, which would not buy their wine if they went the independent route.
Sperling was one of the first private wine farmers to show them the finger and bottle and sell his own wine under his own label, the Delheim label.
Although he made some memorable wines, particularly after buying prime vineyard land on Klapmutskop which produced a pinotage rosé and Delheim’s flagship cabernet-led Grand Reserve, it was above all as an innovative marketer that he shone.
He understood that wine needed to be demystified and made more accessible.
His famous Spatzendreck (despite the name, a delicious dessert wine) label, depicting a little sparrow “ennobling” the contents of a wine barrel with its droppings, may have won the “worst label of the year award” in 1970, but was a trendsetter in terms of cheeky, memorable marketing.
His use of terms like “Burgundy-style” were designed to make wine less mysterious for people frightened off by the aura of snobbery around it, and make them comfortable about drinking wine.
He started the idea of touring the country with his wines and hosting tasting sessions.
He understood that you couldn’t sit on your farm in Stellenbosch and expect the market to come to you. He understood that the market would never grow as long as wine farmers were dependent on people from the Cape coming to buy wine.
They needed to expand their appeal. To this end he and two friends, Frans Malan of Simonsig and Niel Joubert of Spier, started the Stellenbosch Wine Route in 1971. To enhance the experience for visitors, he introduced the idea of having cheese platters to accompany wine tasting, and opened the first restaurant on a wine farm.
Sperling was a larger-than-life figure in the world of wine — big, boisterous and full of fun. In this way he drove the consumption of wine as a category, by being one of its best ambassadors.
For all this, he was known as “the difficult German”.
He had a strong personality, strong opinions and limited PR skills (he called a spade a f ***** g shovel).
It was an industry excruciatingly sensitive about its image, but he cared nothing about that and bulldozed on.
In the process he played a major role in making wine part of the South African demographic.
Sperling, who had Parkinson’s disease, is survived by his wife, Vera, and four children.
He understood that you couldn’t sit on your farm and expect the market to come to you