My favourite image of Andre Shearer is him, at 23, waiting in Maxim's for a waiter to bring over Pierre Cardin, who was dining in the restaurant. It was a few days before Paris Fashion Week.
Shearer is a former King Edward VII School head boy, Wits med school drop-out and would-be model, who thought Cardin had been sincere at a Jo'burg fashion show a few months earlier when he handed all the models his business card and said: "Come to Paris."
Of course, the man had no idea who Shearer was. But, against the odds, Shearer modelled for Cardin's spring collection and spent the next seven years modelling all over Europe, becoming fluent in French and German and eliminating all traces of his SA greenness - rather like the wine he later exported.
WHEN HE GROWS UP
 He wants to be a philanthropist
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Shearer was living in Munich when sanctions were lifted. A group of Germans approached him to help them source SA wine. As a teetotalling vegetarian, it was quite a shift for him, but it was the beginning of a love affair with SA wine.
Shearer started Cape Classics in New York in 1991 with his brother Gary and his wife-to-be, Ange Loock. The company is now the largest importer of speciality SA wines to the US, representing 18 of SA's finest estates, including Kanonkop, Rustenburg, and Buitenverwachting.
Cape Classics also releases its own wines under the Indaba label. The wines are produced at Lourensford Estate, where Shearer keeps an office.
The 19-person company is experiencing its best year ever, having recently sealed a deal to supply SA wine to two major US restaurant chains - and this at a time when Wines of SA, the body that represents and promotes SA wine exporters - is telling local producers the US market is too tough to crack.
Shearer credits his success to years of perseverance, uncompromising service and contacts such as those he has cultivated in Darden, the largest restaurant group on the globe.
"It can take seven years to build relationships with the likes of Darden," he says. "The SA mindset is one of 'hurry up and build an empire before the curtains come down'. But if you do it honestly and competently it does work, even if it takes a bit longer."
The fact that Mark Schwartz - a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia - is a 35% stakeholder in Cape Classics and a friend and mentor to Shearer, has helped to open doors.
Shearer says SA wine has battled to crack the US market, the world's largest fine-wine market, consuming about 340m cases a year. The barriers to entry are high and SA has typically tended to flog inexpensive, slightly lesser-quality wine, whereas US consumers favour fruit-forward, sweeter wines without a hint of greenness.
"We should be focusing on mid-tier wines of elegance, structure and style in the US$8-20 + range, so we excel in a category we already do well in," he argues. "We shouldn't be exporting plonk."
Though SA has the most beautiful wine environs in the world, he says the organised wine fraternity is plagued by political power plays and one-upmanship. It tends to be defensive and arrogant rather than being able to acknowledge its shortcomings and fix them. For these reasons Shearer steers clear of seeking an official role in promoting the industry.
But he has for years acted as an unofficial ambassador for SA, using the wine industry to showcase the country as an investment destination through wine-tasting dinners at top New York restaurants in collaboration with US fund managers.
For each course, Shearer gets the guests (most of whom have never set foot in SA) to blind-taste an SA wine against other well-known international brands. "At the end of the evening, even if they prefer only three of the SA wines out of five, or if the SA wines fared close, the message is that a country couldn't produce wines like this if it didn't have First World attributes."
The hit-rate of guests wanting to visit SA after a dinner is so high that Cape Classics is now starting a travel division. Shearer is also partnering Terroir Capital to evaluate opportunities for hospitality/ winery developments in SA. (One of the three partners in Terroir Capital is Charles Banks, the owner of Screaming Eagle - arguably the most sought-after wine in the US.)
"I've got a good schnozz, I'm a good relationship manager and I love good wine," says Shearer. "I want the company to have standing and value to the family, shareholders, our partners and the environment.
"At the end of the day I want to say: 'Hell, that was fun to be part of.'"
