It’s no secret that wine in South Africa is suffering.
Economic difficulties and uncertainty; Declining living standards, a neutralized hotel business and the loss of tourism revenue create a poisonous storm.
All this is compounded by a feverish political elegance determined to exacerbate the amount of economic self-harm. The existing ban on alcohol consumption (but not exportation) is severely affecting many manufacturers; According to existing estimates, at least 80 wineries will close their doors, which will obviously lead to significant layoffs in the sector.
In such a context, proselytizing the virtues of shale and South African syrah can be conceived as an important duty through some wine writers, or as an abandonment of duty through others.
I don’t use the word “abandonment” lightly. The classic role of a wine critic was not to analyze the broader political context of a vineyard. This is an opportunity, because for the most part of the mid-20th century, the global wine industry was largely determined to avoid political discussions. This cursed disgust has remained, despite the still fractured state of our world; In 2017, I tried to assess the Napa Valley’s reaction to Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric on immigration and relaxed trade, with frustrating and predictable results.
“Most people in the wine industry no longer need to communicate about politics, more than ever. If you say something positive or negative about a candidate, you’ll probably alienate some of your customers,” said Ken Morris, director of communications and marketing at Finca Grgich Hills.
But talking about South African wine today without first analyzing the socio-economic and political forces of the country’s cadters is ridiculous. Gone are the days when, fortunately, the hounds roamed Cape Town with a happy, or intentional, ignorance of South Africa’s monumental troubles.
According to all major statistical analyses, such as the Gini coefficient, South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world. Covid-19 will only exacerbate and exacerbate these social divisions and tensions, as in other countries. Today more than ever, the quality of Swartland’s white chenin is in fact the smallest.
However, the increasingly harsh rhetoric about alcoholism in South Africa is an alarming trend. Although Covid-19 had never materialized, a tightening of regulations governing the sale of alcohol was discussed and brabably discussed.
Wendy Appelbaum, owner of the Stellenbosch DeMorgenzon winery, told me a few years ago that she was contemplating opening a place to eat at the site in anticipation of the development of anti-alcohol rhetoric. He felt that promoting alcohol in a food context would give politicians fewer ammunition.
This dilemma, of course, is not unique to South Africa, however, coronavirus and escalation of violence, attributed to excessive alcohol consumption, have actually played President Cyril Ramaphosa’s game.
“Anti-alcohol sentiment is developing even more in many government neighborhoods, and it is very likely that once we emerge from the existing crisis, stricter restrictions on the sale of alcohol will be maintained. Given the number of alcohol-related injuries and the magnitude of what is thought to be alcohol-related domestic abuse, this is an understandable feeling. However, wine, and especially fine wines, is not to blame. This difference has not yet been effectively articulated,” says winery owner Anthony Hamilton Russell.
“We’re not sure, but some have talked about lifting the restriction on retail sales by the end of September. Online wine sales would possibly be allowed before that. Lobbying, of course, is underway.”
Alexander Waibel, owner of the main Constantia Glen winery, expects the government to step back. It highlights the fact that Cape Town’s vineyards are a component of the good fortune of the tourism industry, contributing more than 12% to South Africa’s GDP.
“I don’t know if restrictions on the sale of alcohol, especially after the discovery of a vaccine, make a lot of sense. South Africa is one of the most sensitive tourist destinations in the world,” says Waibel.
Of course, this implies that South African political elegance will prioritize the economy over what is perceived as a just cause. I love requesting reviews from the frank manufacturers of Cape Town, especially their leaders.
“Corrupt, unnecessary and harmful criminals” are the maximum answers found.
In fact, the South African elite is in a league of their own; make Romania’s elected parliamentarians look like statesmen of style. This is one of the key factors, combined with an increase in the rate of violent crime, which encourages the wealthiest categories to migrate to Europe and the United States. The wine industry is not only fully self-financing, without genuine state support, but will have to confront the government’s obsession with land expropriation.
It’s been a topic of conversation since 2018. Its main promoter, Julius Malema, won the ANC (African National Congress), which made the decision to adopt the policy at its December 2017 conference. What Malema was proposing was necessarily state-approved land grabbing; In February 2018, the South African National Assembly voted to amend the letter to allow the expropriation of land without compensation.
More recently, the government issued an invoice in December 2019. Cyril Ramaphosa is braided in favor of politics: he has called on business leaders to voluntarily give up “underutilized land,” according to local media. It is not unlikely that this policy, if it becomes law, will have an effect on the wine industry.
On the other hand, however, I am skeptical of all the “fatality and darkness” policy that SA won before the Covid-19 pandemic. Key stakeholders have complained for years that South African wine is woefully undervalued and undervalued.
“In fact, we want higher costs for our wines, but we are faced with the resistance of the custodians [in the UK, it is the multiple giant buyers] who in turn ‘blame’ the customer that they will no longer pay for South African wine,” he said. Greg Guy, foreign director of DGB. Many others echoed their emotions during my last press tour in South Africa.
Without a doubt, it is true that for years, the impressive quality of the wines has accidentally mistakenly warned that the Cape the city industry is healthy. Over the past decade, the number of vineyards has declined by about 10 in line with the percent. Grape costs remain unsustainable for many producers and very few homeowners are said to make decent profits. However, this presents an overly pessimistic image: the global is full of regions where good fortune and scarcity coexist.
These contradictions flourish at the epicentre of Bordeaux’s wonderful wines. Lafite and Latour come from the same region, home to many small producers of mediocre wines, who live on the brink of bankruptcy: the largest owner of Bordeaux Castle is probably the Crédit Agricole bank. The same goes for Cape Town’s most productive brands, subsidized by wealthy investors, with incredible functionality than industry standards.
“We expanded our South African, almost doubling it, last fall with all additions to 15 euros [$20] and more and took it well. We found that high-end South African wines are sold more easily than high-end Chile wines. ” reports wine customer Peter Mitchell MW.
“The independent sector has never had more quality SA wines on its shelves and we are seeing wine sales in the range of 10 to 30 euros [$15 to $40]. I would say that some of Australia’s largest manufacturers (and California – in less in our market) have more unrealistic expectations about the promotion price of their wines than South Africans. There is hope for quality-oriented manufacturers.”
It is ironic that the disruption of the pandemic industry is, in one respect, the least worrying risk on the horizon for export-oriented wineries. Many have suffered the loss of the source of income from tourism and hospitality and yet are struggling.
“Although we were suffering, fortunately we were not as beaten as many in our industry. Our main reaction to the scenario has been to concentrate on exports for foreign retail. International retail sales have been strangely strong in this crisis,” says Hamilton Russell. .
“However, as a country, South Africa wants tourism and the disruption of travel abroad to seriously harm us. I am also involved in the difficulty of visiting our primary markets when other countries can, puts us at a disadvantage. We will not be able to expand or maintain our foreign markets without problems without visiting them. That said, I think the interest in fine wines has been at least greater during this crisis and will continue to grow strongly in the future.”
Always optimistic, Anthony Hamilton Russell is one of Cape Town’s kindest and most hospitable winery owners. He welcomed me into his home and we were surprised by the antiquity of 2001 of his senior pinotage Ashbourne. Hamilton Russell also produces a seductive and subtle pinot noir that I can afford. For self-centered and non-public reasons, I need you to stay in business.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if he left the shipment and settled in the Languedoc.
I am concerned that Cape Town winemakers are surrounded by political elegance and a society that is hostile to them and that resents their comfort.
The country’s economy was heading for recession in the early 2020s, even before the full force of the coronavirus pandemic affected South African industries. Many analysts expect a strong accumulation of social unrest and violence in the West and the world to come, while the world’s deficient suffer the pernicious effect of coronavirus. And there is no doubt that South Africa prides itself on having an excess of poor people and deprived of rights.
These economic tensions peaked in 2019, when Stefan Smit of Louiesenhof Wines was shot dead in front of his wife through 4 armed suspects due to a land dispute. Covid-19 may be the catalyst that makes such occurrences more likely and common.
But the scariest thing is that South Africa’s political elite can very well sit down and do nothing, confidently in their just project to correct the ancient injustices of apartheid. Any critical discussion about Cape Town’s exceptional wines must actually recognize this troubling state of affairs.
The literary “divorce” between grapes, the manufacturer and the broader political context is madness; their destinations in South Africa are dangerously intertwined.