Generous and knowledgeable Duimpie Bayly helped transform popular wine market
Francis “Duimpie” Bayly, who died suddenly in August, was almost the last of that generation of happy-go-lucky enthusiasts who created the modern Cape wine industry.
He was an active 80-yearold, and still very involved in wine circles. Time spent in his company was always pleasurable and instructive: he was kind by nature and generous with his knowledge. His encyclopaedic memory made him an extraordinary resource on the unwritten history of Cape wine in the second half of the 20th century.
Unlike most of that early cohort, his willingness to experiment and challenge the received wisdom of the previous generation came with real technical expertise.
He — and the team he worked with — played a key role in making wine the beverage of choice for many South Africans, ensuring that what went into the bottle was sound as well as enjoyable.
He began work at Stellenbosch Farmers Winery (SFW) in March 1962, having completed a pure science degree (rather than one focused on winemaking and viticulture).
As a student he hung out with many of his classmates at the old Grand Hotel in Stellenbosch. Coincidentally their pub was also the watering hole of many of the winemaking team from SFW. That made it easier for him to approach the company for a job, and he landed up working as a lab technician.
This was at a crucial era in the history of modern winemaking in SA: Twee Jonge Gezellen’s NC Krone had returned from Germany with an understanding of the benefits of cooler fermentation temperatures in the production of white wine. He made the necessary technical adjustments at his cellar in Tulbagh and effectively revolutionised the way that wine was made — not only in SA — but everywhere that late summer temperatures were warmer than in Northern Europe.
The technology provided them with an opportunity to create a beverage — Lieberstein — that in time became one of the world’s biggest-selling wine brands. The SFW winemakers used cold fermentation to make white wines that were accessible, fresh, fruity and seemed to be sweeter than the maximum permitted sugar level for unfortified wine — a mere 20g/l.
Bayly joined the team that was transforming the popular wine market in SA. Given its success, he was able to convince Ronnie Melck, who headed that side of the operations, that he needed to further his studies in oenology and viticulture. He was thus able to obtain a master’s degree from the University of California (Davis) — one of the first South Africans involved in practical winemaking (rather than academia) to do so.
As a key employee of SA’s most successful wine producer, Bayly travelled extensively, addressing technical organisations and in turn inviting their experts to SA. In the pre-sanctions era — when many of the other New World wine industries were still struggling to modernise — SA was something of a beacon, and Bayly was a face of that engagement.
He played a key role in SFW’s vine improvement project at Ernita, and was peripherally involved with the creation of the Wine of Origin scheme, which became law in 1973.
Years later he was appointed chair of the demarcation committee responsible for the determination of appellation boundaries. Under his direction, it helped to drive the approval process for the many new areas of origin that contribute so much to SA’s quality profile nowadays.
He depoliticised the composition of the committee, replacing commercial and regional representatives with a team whose technical knowledge on climate and soil enabled them to apply objective criteria to their decision-making processes.
A founding member of the SA Society of Oenology and Viticulture, he contributed to the formal exchange of technical knowledge.
However, it was as a mentor upon whom all could call that the wisdom gained through a lifetime spent in the pursuit of excellence was really conveyed to the generations who have now received the baton.