The Backs
Charles Louis Back was a Lithuanian immigrant to the Cape, who arrived in South Africa in 1902. He settled in Paarl where he set up a butcher shop as well as selling farm produce from the local farmers. Through these dealings he was offered a piece of land on the farm Klein Babylonstoren in the Paarl winelands. In 1916 Charles Back purchased what would later become the Backsberg farm from David Louw and left the butchery behind to become a wine farmer. Winemaking came naturally to him and in 1926 he was awarded the General Smuts Trophy for South Africa's champion wine. After establishing himself and learning the trade, Charles Back purchased Fairview from Hugo in 1937, for the sum of 6500 pounds. Charles Back had two sons, Sydney and Cyril, in whom Back instilled a love for the land, as well as a strong work ethic. When Charles died in 1955, he left Backsberg to Sydney and Fairview to Cyril.
Cyril, both strong-willed and hard working, spent much of his first years at Fairview replanting and planning vineyards. In 1974, Cyril daringly broke away from the KWV ; as a result, the first wines under the Fairview Estate label were bottled in this year. His wines were highly regarded, and he was seen as an innovator in a tightly regulated and controlled KWV industry. Fairview wines started receiving medals regularly at the country's premier venues, such as the Boberg Wine Show. In 1975, Cyril held South Africa's first public wine auction and, together with his wife, Beryl, began to recognise the farm's possibilities of public visitation. Fairview become one of the first farms to open cellar door sales to the public, with Cyril and Beryl being the company's cornerstone.
Cyril's son, Charles, joined Fairview in 1978, after completing his winemaking studies at Elsenburg agricultural college. In 1981, Charles built the Fairview goat tower; it would become a key part of Fairview's brand in future years. Charles introduced a number of new ideas and winemaking methods, quickly developing a distinctive reputation for innovation in the industry.
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Famous quotes containing the word backs:
“It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Men’s hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)