The four new Cape Wine Masters, fltr: Brendan Butler, Anton Swarts, Ivan Oertle and Francois Cillié.
Four new Cape Wine Masters graduated this year, bringing the number of this exclusive group to 100 since the inception of the qualification 33 years ago. Congrats to winemakers Brendan Butler and Anton Swarts, international marketing manager François Cillié, and sales and marketing manager Ivan Oertle.
Their dissertations were respectively titled White Bordeaux-style blends in South Africa, A look at tartrate stabilisation of wine in the South African wine industry, Alternative antioxidants and preservatives in wine: the viability of rooibos and honeybush wood, and Evaluating the development of emerging South African Black-owned wine companies.
The four new graduates join the likes of Duimpie Bayly and Bennie Howard who, along with the late Tony Mossop, were the first to qualify as Cape Wine Masters in 1984.