US investor buys SA wine estate

Foreign investors are increasingly keen to have a ‘slice of the action’ in South Africa’s winelands – evident in the purchase for an undisclosed sum by US tycoon Charles Banks of the Mulderbosch estate in Stellenbosch’s Koelenhof area. This, says Wines of South Africa spokesman Andre Morgenthal, augurs well for the South African wine industry. Banks, a former president of CSI Capital Management, renowned for handling investments of millionaire sportsmen (and women) in such spheres as basketball and baseball and also those of movie and music stars, heads up California-based Terroir Capital, the company behind the Mulderbosch purchase. Wosa says on its website foreign owners/stakeholders in the country’s wine estates stand at 111 – about 16% of the total – including German, French, American Dutch and Swiss, while new interest is being shown by the well-heeled in Congo, Israel, Russia and Singapore. Some of the better-known industry personalities with a foothold in South Africa are Anne Contreau- Huchon of France’s famous cognac family who bought Morgenhof about ten years ago, and Mary Eliane de Lencquesaing, former owner of Chateau Pichon.