Bidders at the annual Rotary Club of Gately wine auction raised their glasses and their paddles to make half a million rand for charity last Friday.
The auction, in its 27th year, raised a record amount, having rung in R450000 last year and Gately Rotary president Stephen Keet said the largest bid was R23000 for 12 magnums of wine from a variety of wine estates.
“This is a sign of wonderful generosity from the people who attend.
“The bids bear no relation to the value of the wine because this all goes to charity,” said Keet.
The club’s wine auction committee chairman, attorney Mike Francis, said he founded the auction 27 years ago.
“I came into Rotary 29 years ago and we were encouraged to start a fundraising project that we were passionate about, so I started the wine auction on a very small-scale.”
Initially held at the East London Museum café, the auction called on Rotarians to donate bottles from their personal collections.
“We asked them to dig deep in their own cellars and then we invited people we thought were interested in wine and held the auction,” said Francis.
“We raised about R5000 at the first one.”
Over the years the event grew in size and popularity and is now held at the Regent Hotel.
“I started approaching local bottlestores for donations and moved on to wine merchants, and then I built up contacts in the winelands and would go down there to collect donations from them myself.”
This year, wine estates from the Western Cape including the Bredasdorp, Tulbach, Wellington, Calitzdorp and Stellenbosch regions donated more than 1000 bottles of wine.
“Now eight couples on the auction committee, including myself, drive down at our own expense and collect all the wine from the estates,” said Francis.
With wine guru and celebrated wine writer Michael Fridjhon as the auctioneer, and a few sips of wine under bidders’ belts to soften resolve, generous bidders helped fill the coffers of the service club’s charity kitty.
“One of our members donated a 2004 bottle of Kanonkop cabernet sauvignon that he bought at our auction 14 years ago. Together with two other bottles, it sold for R10000,” said Francis.
The highest bid of the event, however, did not come in a bottle.
“We auctioned accommodation in a French country cottage and it went for R35000.”
While the charities that will benefit from the auction are local – including Masithethe Counselling Services, Cansa, the Carel du Toit Centre, Meals on Wheels, the NSRI, Salem Baby Care Centre and St Bernard’s Hospice – a contribution of the proceeds will also go to two rural projects in Darling and Robertson’s wine region, in appreciation of wine donations. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za..