If the samples on show at South Africa’s triennial Cape Wine exhibition in September received a rapturous reception from visiting tasters, and a billionaire foreign investor talked of "getting the dust of this beautiful country” under his skin, it was clear that some of the uncomfortable legacies of the apartheid era are still being addressed.
Three of the main topics of discussion among the 350 exhibitors and the visitors in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, were the need to cast off the country’s image as a producer of cheap bulk wine for bottling overseas, the move towards organic and sustainable viticulture, and efforts to improve the treatment of farm workers.
A new approach
Wines of South Africa (WOSA) chairman Michael Jordaan pointed out to the attendees that while South Africa is considered a New World wine producer, “it’s been more than 350 years since Jan van Riebeeck planted the first vines.” Wines from Constantia, now a suburb of sprawling Cape Town, were, he said, celebrated in poetry and requested by Napoleon when he was in captivity.” But, Jordaan reminded his audience, during the apartheid era South Africa’s wine business was run as a monopoly. “Farmers were encouraged to plant white grapes because that would give them the highest volumes and the wines that were made were cheap and cheerful, easy-drinking wines.”
With the end of apartheid in 1994 – and the removal of economic sanctions – winemakers needed to up their game if they wanted to sell their wares, and so began a period of great experimentation. “So my take on the South Africa wine industry is that there is 350 years of tradition, but 21 years of innovation,” Jordaan said.
Apart from adopting modern winemaking techniques, ridding the vineyards of most of the once-prevalent leaf roll virus and replanting them with more appropriate varietals, there has been a focus on sustainable and – in many cases – organic farming.
“Organic and biodynamic are quite a new way of doing things in South Africa,” said Francois van Zyl, winemaker for Laibach Vineyards. He was leading one of the Amorim-sponsored seminars on the future of organic wine in the country. “I have worked 10 vintages in Europe and have been at Laibach since 2000,” Van Zyl said, “and I can promise you that South Africa has the best climate, soils and terroir in the world for organic wine production.” This belief - with which some South Americans might take issue - was partly explained, he said, by the fact that the region surrounding Cape Town – where most of South Africa’s wines are produced – is also home to one of only six UNESCO World Heritage Sites that are recognised as floral kingdoms.
Whatever the role of the flowers, there was no disputing the aesthetic appeal of the Cape Winelands. Indian billionaire Analjit Singh told attendees that he fell in love with the region - getting the dust under his skin - when visiting South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The chairman of Max India Ltd, who splits his time between London and India, said he was smitten by the region’s beauty and the idea of a place of isolation and contemplation. So he bought a wine farm, and then two more. Now, the home that he had planned as a place of peace will be transformed into a boutique winery and 25-room, five-star hotel set to open in 2016. Other Indian, Chinese and North American business executives have also expressed interest in the country’s wine industry, WOSA said.
Jordaan echoed Van Zyl’s reference to the Cape’s efforts to establish itself as the home of biodiversity when he said that the Cape Floristic Region has “more than 9,000 vascular plant species, of which 69% are endemic [found only in one location].” Visitors who stepped outside the convention centre found copious birds of paradise and Protea used for edging, and trees sculpted by strong southeasterly winds that were said to remove pollutants, tamp down mould and prevent mildew from forming in the nearby vineyards.
Worker issues
One speaker who frankly addressed both the issues of organic viticulture and employee welfare was former surfing champion Johan Reyneke, of Reyneke Wines in the Stellenbosch region. Leading a panel titled “Vintner Surfers – A Holistic Approach”, he described how, as a rebellious, longhaired college graduate with a philosophy degree, the only job he could get was as a labourer on his family’s farm. He said he was the only white person who was working there. Eventually, he made friends with his co-workers. “They looked after me,” he said. So, when he inherited the place in 1998, he included them his business plan. He needed their knowledge and they needed housing. Today, they own their own homes and he has a successful farm.
“To be sustainable you need three things: You have to make money. You have to look after nature, and you have to look after people,” he said. Reyneke began embracing organic and biodynamic principles more than 15 years ago. “We all work it and everything we raise or grows contributes” to making it a sustainable endeavour. “If the farm is self-sufficient, it means our own cow manure costs remain the same every day no matter the price of oil. It’s little things like that, the waste-not, want-not philosophy that turns into sustainability.”
Another biodynamic producer, Andrew Gunn of Iona Wines, echoed Reyneke’s views. At Iona, he said, the 20 families on the farm were “an integral part of the success of our business”. His wines generally get good scores from US critics, but his seminar was, in the words of WOSA’s own blogger, “lightly attended”.
How many other estate owners share these principles was not clear. While Jordaan of WOSA insisted that the Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trade Association “ensures the working conditions on the farms are ethical and fair and sustainable.” WIETA Chief Executive Linda Lipparoni, the leader of the group formed in 2002, took a different view. It is, she said, the South African national government and provincial agencies that must enforce compliance issues, adding there are not enough inspectors.
Her non-profit, voluntary organisation’s mission is to promote ethical trade in the wine industry. Of the 600 wine estates, 50 wine cooperatives, 3,200 wine-grape-growers in South Africa, only about a third are members. It isn’t only laws or a group’s rules, but “attitudes that need to change,” Lipparoni said.
Many farm owners, even some WIETA members, cling to a colonial mentality. For instance, one Constantia estate owner told this reporter he had 90 children on his farm, and gave an example of “a 14-year-old girl who has three children, each by a different father”. He said that he gave her a stern talking to and sent her to school, but didn’t mention having taken any action against the men involved.
“Yes, there is a definite paternalistic attitude by the owners towards the workers. And that is much harder to deal with,” Lipparoni agreed. Wages were another issue. Successful winery owner Gary Jordan of Jordan Wine Estates in Stellenbosch was quick to note that his workers get paid well above the 120.32 rand ($8.84) daily minimum wage. It was not clear how many others adopted the same principle, but, as Lipparoni acknowledged, “The wine industry is not necessarily a profitable industry.”
Little progress seems to have been made in moving away from all-white winery ownership, despite what Jordaan described as “a whole range of initiatives from empowering workers to black-owned labels”. Of the 350 exhibitors at Cape Wine, Malmsey Rangaka of M’Hudi Wines was the only black winemaker who actually owned her own vineyard. She is not a member of WIETA, but said the winery has its own corporate social responsibility program.
“We recognise there is still a long road to travel,” Jordaan said, but South Africa’s wine industry, which makes up 1.2% of South Africa’s GDP, provides 167,000 jobs, and exports “450m litres of wine”, is looking a lot more healthier and more sustainable than it did during Cape Wine 2012.
