Baron Carl von Babo was an Austrian viticulturist with an international reputation, trained at the Viticultural School at Klosterneuburg near Vienna. He was appointed viticulturist to the government of the Cape Colony in 1884, with a view to re-organizing the local wine industry. Until 1887 he was also manager of the government wine farm at Groot Constantia. He soon compiled his Reports on viticulture in the Cape Colony (20 p), published in Cape Town in 1885. He also wrote the section on "Viticulture" in The South African Exhibition, Port Elizabeth, 1885 (pp. 185-200), edited by Charles Gowan and published in 1886. He fiercely promoted the making of natural [as opposed to fortified] wines at the Cape and his practice of doing away with the addition of spirits to local wines constituted an important milestone in the history of South African wine making.
At this time the industry suffered a severe set-back owing to the infection of the vineyards by phylloxera, or vine-aphid. It attacked the roots of the plants and the problem was eventually solved by grafting cultured vines on American stocks which resisted the disease. In his contribution on "Viticulture" von Babo wrote: "I have no doubt that the wine industry of the Cape can be developed again to such an extent as to become an inexhaustible source of wealth to the whole country". A few years later he published a further short pamphlet, The grafting of American vines (Cape Town, 1892, 4 p). He became manager of the Cape Town Wine and Export Syndicate, formed to restore the overseas wine trade, but the venture was not a success. He died shortly after returning to Europe.
