Where Did We Go Wrong?
“The wines of Constantia became famous in Europe at the same time (mid 1700s) as the red wines of Chateau Lafite. Makes you think.” Su Birch, the head of Wines of South Africa, tweeted this week. Lafite is a famous French first growth – the 2009’s are selling for around 14 000 bucks a bottle. Yes Su, it does make me think. It makes me think, “Where the fuck did we go wrong?”
How did we go from supplying the rich and famous (Napoleon, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Baudelaire) to where we are today, fighting and struggling with the rest of the new world wine producing countries? Sure, we make some brilliant wines, and of course we are getting some pats on the backs for doing so, but we have nothing like Lafite.
Is it because wine has never become part of a general South African culture? The French have it, the Spanish and Italians do as well, and even the Australians have managed to a degree. Wine, despite having been around in this country for so long, still has an aura of foreignness about it.
I think it starts with us hardly drinking wine at all. Of all the major wine producing nations, South Africa consumes the least – a measly 6,97 (2009) litres per year. What a joke, I can drink that before lunch.
I am not naïve enough to ignore the social and political reasons for this. Wine is not a historical African beverage. But in the 350 years that we have been tending vines and making wine, it is no closer to becoming a remotely South African one.
And when I say South African beverage, I mean one that we are happy to associate with a national identity. Although to be fair, I am not really one to be scooped up and thrown in to the trough of national identities. They scare me, but they do exist. And in my mind, wine does not feature as part of ours at all. It is a product that we make, export, and drink a bit of, but do not own as a country. Essentially, wine lacks social importance in South Africa.
There is no real need to argue that wine does not figure in the South African way of life. Some people drink it, most don’t, and a few know something about it.
But should wine be important? There is the commercial side to this answer; the more accepted wine becomes in South Africa, the more it is drunk and the healthier our local industry becomes. But that would put the impetus on the industry to convince the nation that our wine is better than our beer, has a richer history, and is something to be proud of. And so far they have not been able to get close.
Stuck with the embarrassment of the dop system, and continued poor working conditions, the wine industry has plenty of PR issues to worry before they start thinking about a cultural shift.
That’s what I believe is needed, a cultural shift in South Africa as to how we drink. This isn’t a class, or economic issue. The poor and the rich have drunk wine for years. We have a massive alcohol abuse problem in this country. The very way we interact with alcohol is flawed. We are now looking at earlier closing times and a ban on alcohol advertising, all very prohibition-like if you ask me. Thomas Jefferson realised that a prohibition would not work, and argued that “wine is the only antidote to whiskey”.
Of course, this was in an American context, but his point is still valid: the way wine is drunk is different to that of spirits. The moderate, thoughtful, approach to drinking – of which wine should be the epitome of – can only come about from a cultural shift. And part of that shift is to start drinking more wine.
How does this happen? It goes back to my initial question, “where the fuck did we go wrong?” Oppression and subjugation. Treating wine as a method of payment rather than a means of communion. This was a terrible mistake. Instead of wine being a normal part of a meal, it was saved for the end of the week for payment, drunkenness and a means of forgetting. We are now saddled with a legacy that leaves wine in the hands of the few, and alcoholism in the homes of many.
Can we ever fix this? Can we liberate wine from its past? Its mistakes? Can we make it South African? I was told not to say you can’t answer your own questions. Or if you can’t, don’t make them. Well, I’m breaking that rule. I have no bloody clue.
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7 Comments
Mida
28 Sep 2011
Great article, Harry!
steve
28 Sep 2011
I do believe the famous Constantia wines of the 1700′s were actually sweet wines, popular at the time. (Oudtshoorn used to dominate in the feather business too, things change).
Back to the point, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison just looking at volume stats. South african demographics have no relation to the other major wine producing countries(ok maybe chile). If you looked at volume/gdp per capita then we might be winning(if it is indeed a race).
I think it is totally a class issue. I think what you should be saying is that the rich should be drinking and appreciating a bit more wine, and the dirt poor way less. Don’t forget that having supermarkets having liquor licences for wine and not beer is already a huge artificial support to the industry.
Harry
28 Sep 2011
Hey Steve,
The famous Vin de Constance was definitely a sweet wine. And yes things do change.
I think what I was trying to get across, although on second reading I am not sure I totally succeeded, was that despite our long history of wine making we never succeeded in creating a culture of wine. Of course there are social reasons for this, and by pointing to those I am hazarding at where the solutions may lie to start creating a bigger wine drinking culture.
The volume stats are skewed, and I’ll admit that is a slightly shaky argument, but I disagree that wine drinking should remain class based. I am not saying we should top the list, but just pointing out that as South Africans we do not drink a lot of wine.
Also, and this is my major concern. It is not how much wine you drink, it is how you drink it. If we look back through history to see how wine was consumed – academic symposiums, religious offerings etc, it was not about excess, and drunkeness. I think, by having wine as part of daily life, it avoids becoming a mere passage to oblivion. I may, however, be naive here.
Adinda Booysen – Cape Wine Academy Managing Director
29 Sep 2011
Dear Harry
In reply to your question by answering with the words of Obama ‘yes we can!’ and, yes we are.
You have identified the sins of the past very accurately – if one uses the biblical analogy of the sins of the fathers’ punishing the children for 7 generations, then the sin of the dop stelsel has manifested terrible ills in our society, albeit a small section of our society in the Western Cape. Conditions such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAT), Alcoholism & Violence to name a few. The solution to this particular problem warrants an answer of its own, I would be happy to facilitate a reply from various industry initiatives that are addressing and remedying these sins. The fact of the matter is that the industry is addressing them.
I would however attempt to answer your question regarding the embracing of a wine culture by the majority of South Africans with the following example: would the majority of South Africans, have believed as little as 10 years ago, that Blue Bull supporters (those of staunch beliefs…) would go to a soccer stadium, least of all, the stadium being in Soweto? Now, you know the answer to this – the irony being that Soccer, the traditional sport of our Black population, brought Rugby, the traditional sport of the White population – to Soweto.
I don’t know if you have ever been to the Soweto Wine Festival? The first festival was held in 2004, in Soweto, at the University of Johannesburg campus. I can remember that festival so well – a handful of wine farms exhibiting. The festival goers were quite apprehensive and weren’t entirely sure if they wanted to be part of this ‘spitting’ brigade.
How far we have come in 7 years! The Soweto Wine Festival that has just passed – was noted to be the 29 th most prominent event in Africa! We had 8 500 festival goers, gladly swirling and spitting or happily sniffing and swallowing wines! The very same people, who in 2004 were unsure, are now confident wine drinkers and wine ambassadors. No hidden agenda’s – they drink what they like – and they will tell you that! Our research at the festival has shown that 43 percent of festival attendees are prepared to pay more than R100 for a bottle of wine.
Cape Town (usually a couple of years behind us here in Joburg!) has followed suit. Last year we held the first Gugulethu Festival, and it was a huge success. 2 000 upmarket people attended, and although only 24 brave wineries attended, we are confident that next year, many more will participate.
We, at the Cape Wine Academy are passionately committed to the study, appreciation and enjoyment of South African wine – in reality – we see ourselves as custodians of initiating this change in cultural mindset about wine consumption and making wine part of a balanced lifestyle. As such, we are also the custodians of the Soweto and the Gugulethu Wine Festivals.
Is this enough? Can industry do it alone? Is wine meant to be the preferred tipple only of the wealthy in our society, regardless of their culture? The answer is simple: of course not. Only people can make a difference, not industry on its own. I challenge you to take your team to the ‘townships’ and to the ‘bulls supporters’ in your area, and introduce them to the wonderful world of wine and see their reactions, you will be greatly surprised at how much wine is loved in each spectrum.
To conclude: Yes we can do something to liberate wine in our country. Of course we can make wine South African (just look at Pinotage and the strides the variety has made in the market). We, the Cape Wine Academy, among other companies, are solely about enriching lives in terms of wine and creating a sense of pride in who we are and where wine came from in a South African context.
Kind Regards
Adinda Booysen
Managing Director – Cape Wine Academy
adinda@capewineacademy.co.za
Harry Reginald Haddon
29 Sep 2011
Hi Alinda,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I guess my comment about the industry was slightly misguided, as the industry takes on a far bigger scope than perhaps I was intending. I know that there are initiatives going on to correct the wrongs of the past. And, I guess, this is the first step. I don’t want you to think that I believe the industry is not doing anything. If that comes across it is my mistake and I apologise.
But about wine drinking becoming a culture, I don’t think we should slip so easily into a white/black dichotomy. A Us vs. Them. This is not about racism, this is about drinking wine.
Of course the Soweto Wine Festival is a good thing. But is it promoting a culture of wine drinking? Because that is my point. How do we create a wine drinking culture where wine is an everyday occurrence. It is not a strange beverage that makes people nervous.
I really don’t have answers, and I am not pointing fingers, but I believe we need to work to a point where the notion of wine is a very familiar one to South Africans. Wine needs to become part of our lives. A daily habit, a ritual with meals. We need to look to the past to drink how the greeks and Romans did.
Last point. Pinotage getting better is not making wine South African. Making wine South African is when South Africans become proud of their wine industry.
Kwispedoor
29 Sep 2011
Many years ago, my dad came back from a trip to Italy and recounted how blue collar workers in the Fiat factory were drinking red wine with their sandwiches for lunch. I’m sure most of those dudes had no idea what brettanomyces or methoxypyrazines were – they weren’t wine experts, they simply drank the stuff as part of everyday life.
Many South Africans feel they need to get fancy about their wine or impress their friends and tend to mostly drink wine on special occasions or binge over weekends. There’s scant evidence of responsible daily use with meals. In Europe, kids often get a small portion of wine with their meals from a young age (sometimes watered down a bit). In our country, kids are mostly prohibited to drink until curiosity, peer pressure or good ol’ mischief leads them into the binging culture. Sadly, I don’t see this changing overninght…
I’m off to make some boerewors and open a Cordoba Crescendo 2006, which I’ll use for sauce with some herbs from my garden. A simple bachelor’s meal perhaps, but elevated to a different level by the wonder of wine. Here’s to a healthy culture of wine drinking in this country – may it come sooner than expected!
Jorge Ferreira
30 Sep 2011
Hi Harry,
Yes we have a serious amount of work to do with getting the masses to drink wine as a everyday thing, should we not take step back and analyse what the mass market would look at to get them to drink wine instead of beer or brandy…
Lets say they enjoy sweet sparkling stuff, ok sparkling wine answears that issue but should we not promote wine (red or white) with coke or maybe sprite, we Portuguese do this as a way of life with our meals, no disrespect to wine but hey you will get the younger masses onto wine as a way of life, as they get older their palates will evolve and walla dry red/white becomes an option?
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