DELHEIM

Michael Sperling better known as "Spatz" Sperling (photograph by Toby Murphy)

Author: Jeanri-Tine van Zyl

Published: 24 March 2011 in Wine Magazine

This is important to know.  Sperling means sparrow, with Spatz being the diminutive, affectionate form. “A Spatz can come from nowhere, and it sits where it shouldn’t,” tells the man who is nicknamed after this “little naughty bird”. Spatz Sperling smiles at his analogy, sitting upright in his plush, olive-coloured chair in his Delheim home. Vera Sperling, his wife, weaves in and out of the room like a bird herself, clucking and teasing, but also guarding and praising the man who, she admits, “is an icon”. (“But please don’t tell him he is a legend, he’s got a big head already!”) In 1975, Spatz named a patch of vineyards on top of Klapmutskop, to the north-west of the farm Vera’s Cruz (meaning Vera’s Cross), after this ever-present figure in his life. “It commemorates the cross and suffering I’ve had to bear since marrying Sperling,” she teases, but they seem as inseparable as swans.

Read more: http://www.winemag.co.za/article/wine-legend-the-story-of-spatz-sperling-2011-03-24