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Pioneer of South African wine Graham Beck passes away - 28/07/2010

Graham Beck, founder of Graham Beck wines and a pioneer who did so much to shape South Africa's modern wine industry, has passed away, aged 80. Our thoughts are with his wife of 50 years, Rhona and all the Beck family.

Graham was a pioneer of the modern South African wine industry and a pivotal figure in its resurgence in the years following the end of Apartheid. An entrepreneur to the core, his first fortune was made through a home renovations business, and his second through the mining industry, but it is his work with wine that will leave the greatest legacy.

Graham purchased Madeba farm in Robertson, which was to become the home of Graham Beck wines, in 1983 and later bought vines in both Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. Today the company is one of the most successful and respected in South Africa. But Graham Beck wines have always been about more than just grapes, corks and bottles.

In recent years, Graham founded a game reserve next to the Robertson farm and opened the Graham and Rhona Beck Skills Centre near Madeba, part of an extensive social development program, and aims to facilitate skills development for the long term upliftment of the farming community in the Breede River Valley.

His ideas, influence and energy will be sadly missed.

You can read a longer version of this article on Bibendum Times