Are collective groupings and alliances such as the South African Black Vintners Alliance (SABVA) adding significant business clout to newer players in the South Africa wine industry? Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) initiatives are a necessary development in South African business, but they’ve frequently been used to excuse ineffective skills and inferior products. Inheriting this legacy can sometimes be more harmful than good for the players involved.
BAWSI’s Nosey Pieterse says a separate black vintners association is still necessary because differences between black and white vintner businesses are still too vast. This is why BAWSI and SAWIT formed SABVA in early 2005 to represent their interests. SABVA chairperson Vivian Kleynhans says members each have their own wine brands to operate, but SABVA ensures collective funding for shows, facilitates collective tastings and opportunities for retail listings and skills transfer.
SABVA sealed a deal with Smollan Liquor Division in early November to negotiate collective shelfspace with local retailers on a national basis on behalf of member companies Blouvlei, House of Lindiwe, Mia Cara, Pumlani Wines, Ses’fikile and Sibeko Wines. Kleynhans says this alliance on retail shelves is about building collective strength for members in the domestic market.
Kleynhans also uses overseas trade visits to inform international distributors and restaurateurs about the SABVA collective, while promoting her own Mia Cara brand. She notes a lot of foreign interest in supporting black vintners. ‘A Heritage Link Brands distributor from Boston will be visiting SABVA members in South Africa in December and assessing the viability of their brands in outlets they supply. She's secured about 3,000 specialty grocer stores for our group. She's got listings there for us, so she just needs to choose our wines,’ explains Kleynhans. ‘For my brand Mia Cara alone, she's already done heaps of focus tastings - in New York, Chicago and Washington etc.’
But how do other SABVA members feel? Nondumiso Pikashe, marketing spokesperson for Ses’fikile, says recent local listings with Picardi Rebel, Makro and Pick ‘n Pay are a result of their efforts, not spin-offs of their SABVA associations. She believes links with Bruce Jack – Ses’fikile wines are produced in the Flagstone cellar – probably provide a greater vote of retailer confidence.
‘We were hoping a black alliance would create an enabling environment for wineries in terms of accessing funding and penetrating the wine industry itself, because of the resistance we’ve encountered in the past. By resistance, I mean that previously we didn’t have the knowledge, skills and technological know-how. We were supplied with sub-standard wines,’ she explains. ‘Through SABVA we have access to seminars and experts in wine-related skills development. In terms of funding, and getting into the industry, that’s on its way. But as far as marketing is concerned, SABVA has not really come up with a marketing strategy as a collective. Perhaps a person should be appointed to run a SABVA office on behalf of the vintners, instead of relying on members to devote their time.’
Abelia Lawrence, chief executive officer of Blouvlei in Wellington, feels the success of their black, female-owned company of 17 can be attributed to hard work, plus the mentorship and financial assistance they’ve received from Mont du Toit winery. Lawrence was the only wine company on a recent trade initiative to Ghana organised by Wesgro, aimed at fostering trade in African countries. She’s now negotiating her first container of wine for this market.
Tackling the South African market seems more of a challenge though. ‘Last year we exported 80% of production. But I want to grow the local market,’ she says. ‘My wine is well-positioned in Cape Town and Johannesburg in restaurants and hotels, but it’s not as successful on retail shelves. Times are tough and people drop prices because of the over-supply in the industry.’
Lawrence also doesn’t depend on SABVA associations when marketing Blouvlei wines. ‘It’s difficult because everybody has their own way of marketing their brands. Some things we do as a collective, for instance the Smollans deal. But I don’t think we want somebody representing all black vintners in a marketing capacity. At Blouvlei we don’t want to punt the message of black, black, black all the time,’ she says. ‘SABVA came about because government organizations would like to work with us as a collective. If we apply for funding for a show, or if we want to do a road show in Soweto, then we get financial assistance as a collective. I’d prefer to keep our individuality and each do our own marketing initiatives.’
Blouvlei doesn’t have BEE explanations on their wine labels, although some exporters are keen on the idea. ‘In the US, people were keen for us to ‘tell the story’. But you know what? We’re exporting wines to the UK, Germany and Denmark. I never start by telling them the story. I tell them how the grapes are produced and then tell them it’s a black-owned company. I want people to focus on the product first and buy it because they like it. We want people to buy our wines not because we’re black, but because we have quality and the price is right,’ says Lawrence. It seems a mature strategy to take. ‘Yet at the Soweto show, consumers said they’d like to see the difference between our wines and white-owned ones. We still need to grow that black consumer market. So locally, we’re not really sure about whether this [BEE explanations] would be something positive or negative.’
Unlike her SABVA colleagues, Vivian Kleynhans is confident that displaying a collective SABVA neck tag would be beneficial on members’ wines. ‘By that we’d want to draw consumers’ attention. Our wines are for everybody, but we’d like black consumers especially to be aware that this is what they can purchase,’ she says. ‘We haven't got large local support from our black communities yet but these consumers often ask how to identify our wines. Black people are not wine drinkers traditionally, they're beer drinkers. We've been educating them and we need to tell them which ones are ours.’