Anton is one of the senior winemakers of Spier Wines, where he has been working since 1999. He attained his ND: Agriculture at the Cape Technikon, in conjunction with Elsenburg Agricultural College in 1998. He completed the Van Ryn’s Advanced Brandy Course of the SA Brandy Association in 2014, Spier’s Management Development Program in 2015, Michael Fridjhon’s 2019 Wine Judging Academy in association with the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and currently he is studying online through Harvard’s ManageMentor® program.
He attained his Cape Wine Master’s qualification in May 2017 and became the 100th Cape Wine Master in the South African Wine Industry and his thesis was “Tartrate stabilisation of wine in the South African Wine Industry”.
Anton was a designated top taster in the National Finals of the South African Wine Tasting Championships from 2013 to 2018. During this time, he qualified three times to be part of South Africa’s official Wine Tasting Team that went to France to take part in the World Blind Tasting Championship. He was also the first winemaker and Cape Wine Master ever to make it as a Springbok member of the South African Team.
Anton also serves as Judge on various panels for Veritas, as well as other prestigious competitions held within the South African Wine Industry.
Although Anton is passionate about Pinot Noir, he recently fell in love with the beauty of Bordeaux and was intronised as a Commandeur du Vin de Bordeaux to the Commanderie de Bordeaux Afrique du Sud in August 2018.
Anton also states that; “over the past years I have come to the conclusion, that the more you know about wine, you realise how little you actually know about wine”. In his free time, he loves entertaining family and friends. Food and wine are just one of his passions and opening a special bottle at least once a week is a treat. He also believes that although the wine world can be quite daunting, he loves to engage with people and show them that everybody can speak “wine”.
DISSERTATION: A look at tartrate stabilisation of wine in the South African wine industry
The dissertation originated from queries and frustrations he had as a winemaker regarding the discrepancies in analyses after he had tartrate-stabilised wine. One laboratory would test the wine as tartrate ‘stable’, where another laboratory would test the wine as tartrate ‘unstable’ due to the formation of ‘fine crystals’. A scenario also presented itself where wine was tartrate stabilised and produced a sediment some months after bottling. If anyone in the SA Wine Industry has a problem regarding a wine that has a tartrate stabilisation issue, Anton will gladly assist and all detail will be handled as confidential. Anton is currently building a library of case studies as further research to his dissertation regarding tartrate stability issues in the SA Wine Industry.
