October saw the launch of two excellent red blends: Kevin Arnold’s Jem 2004 from Waterford at R680 a bottle and the Quintette 2005 from Spar at less than 10% of that. Both have impeccable credentials: the former is made by Kevin Arnold, a leading light in the Cape Winemakers’ Guild and the man who put Rust & Vrede on the quality map.
The latter was blended by Tinus van Niekerk, owner of one of the sharpest palates in the business who makes Formula One wines in terroirs as diverse as the Orange River, Robertson and the Rhône. Both hail from Stellenbosch, with fruit for the former from the Helderberg while the five components of the latter come from Spier, coincidentally and surprisingly also on the Helderberg, according to the sixth edition of the World Atlas of Wine (Mitchell Beazley, 2007). Similarities aside, they are poles apart in one important department: price.
As any East End wide boy or Jamie Oliver will tell you, a jemmy is a short crowbar that comes in handy during burglaries. Which is one way of paying for Waterford’s latest offering. Or the new release of Vergelegen V from another Helderberg estate in Somerset West, or Saxenburg Shiraz from Kuilsriver or Ernie Els from Kevin’s Helderberg neighbour, all priced north of R500 a bottle.
Perhaps the first lesson they should teach at the UCT Business School course on wine marketing is that fine wine has nothing to do with economics. Sybrand van der Spuy owns Cape Point Vineyards, the Cape’s current most successful winery as measured by wine show scrambled eggs.
Sybrand will tell you with a disarming smile over foie gras at Michael Broughton’s Terroir restaurant that he only loses R40 on each bottle of wine he sells. Such is the cost of opening up a whole new appellation – in this case planting vineyards at Scarborough and Fish Hoek. Dave King and other wind-loving pioneers at Agulhas would probably say that Sybrand got a good deal at a loss of only R40 per bottle.
Fine wine is becoming increasingly like perfume: it is aspiration that is being sold, rather than the contents of the bottle. When winemakers slip through the grape curtain to showcase their product at winemaker dinners in Johannesburg, the venue is invariably one of the 'larniest' restaurants. Staging a tasting academy at the Arabella Sheraton must go a long way to explain the R3990 fee, given that most of the local wines to be tasted, are donated.
But at least bursaries are offered, so potentially those lacking gravy train tickets can experience one of the most important features of fine wine and its enjoyment – the simultaneous worship of Mammon and Bacchus.
South Africa is not alone in the glorification of expensive wine and stemware. As auction prices become more and more ridiculous, fine wine moves from the pages of the lifestyle supplement onto the front page of the Financial Times. Forbes falls over itself to validate conspicuous consumption as fine wine moves into the heady field populated by fine art.
It’s a no-brainer for producer and punter. High prices are an excellent abbreviation for concepts the moneyed (“long on cash”) punter doesn’t necessarily understand. It’s a cruel twist of fate that most of the palates buying these highly priced Bacchanalian reliquaries, are on the angel’s side of fifty with palates past their physiological prime and ego, just about the only facility left to appreciate the expensive goodies.
So what does it all mean, apart from a fat pay day for a few lucky producers and the usual wine insiders? In focusing on high prices, South African wine runs the risk of falling into a trap.
Take WOSA’s reaction to the news that Chile is expected to overtake South Africa as fifth largest supplier to the all-important UK wine market sooner, rather than later. As Harpers reported last month “Jo Mason, UK market manager for Wines of South Africa, said she was not disappointed that Chile had overtaken South Africa in the multiples. Despite a fall in sales of 5% by volume and value this year, she pointed out that its average price had increased in the same period and was higher than Chile's (£3.80).”
Chile’s average price achieved is given as £3.72 but their volumes are up 26% and value by 23% on the year, so you don’t need to hire Raymond Ackerman as a consultant to discover whose business is in better shape.
In the wake of South Africa’s disastrous performance in the controversial 1995 South African Airways wine test match between South Africa and Australia, the organizers turned their sights to a triangular tourney, with Down Under replaced by a Chile and Argentina double act. After a South African industry backlash to the Aussie defeat, the new series was abandoned before it grew legs. But at least a couple of South African wine hacks, had an enjoyable meal in a fabulous restaurant, on the shores of Lake Garda, in the company of the unexpectedly monikered Douglas Murray, founder of Montes, a serious Chilean wine producer.
A decade ago, South Africa would almost certainly have triumphed, especially if the judges were specially chosen (a situation, some would argue, that explained the poor showing of South Africa against the Kangaroos).
But ten years is a long time in wine and after six weeks spent sipping spectacular value-for-money Chilean Carmenère and Cabernet in Belo Horizonte, the Johannesburg of Brasil, with juicy Argentinian Malbec on the side, this punter would now back the thrifty South American Gods who seem to be in the ascendant over Mammon, so fervently worshipped in the South African cellar.