Thursday, July 31, 2025

David Brice RIP

Another hero of the Cape wine world has left us. 

David at a Cape Winemakers Guild Auction

David Brice was two years ahead of me at school, St Andrews College in Grahamstown in the early 1960s. At that time, when I was 13 and he 15, the age gap and seniority in the school pecking order as well as our being in different houses, he in Merriman and I in Armstrong, was an insurmountable chasm. I remember him as one of the “nice” guys, who exuded a special confidence without being full of his own importance. He always looked very splendid in his first team rugby outfit and, especially, in the full Highland dress we wore in the cadet corps. He, as a “student officer” and I as a piper in the band wore the full dress uniform with white spats, black and white horsehair sporran, Graham tartan socks, kilt and plaid wrap.

Much later, after Lynne and I started our retail business, Main Ingredient, in Sea Point, David became a customer, buying food ingredients from us that were not easy to find elsewhere. Through this, we became aware of his love and encyclopaedic knowledge of food and of the wine industry.

He was a founding partner, with Richard Burnett, of wine brokers and cellarers ‘Wine Cellar’ in Observatory, which offered wine enthusiasts a wonderful secure storage facility for their wine collections with ideal temperature and humidity conditions. They also imported and sold a superb range of imported, mainly French wines and champagnes and presented very interesting tastings of these wines.


At the opening of the new Wine Cellar tasting Room in Observatory in 2015

He was a wonderful supporter for us as retailers of gourmet foods and wine and was, in many ways, a mentor as we were setting up what was, in the early part of the 21st Century, an innovative business. 

We send our sincere sympathy to Angela and to all his present and former colleagues at the Wine Cellar and wish them all the love and strength they will need.

David at a John Collins trade tasting in the Cape Town Club with Marcha Cooke and Caroline Rillema

Asking a question at the Dewetshof Celebration of Chardonnay in Robertson

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