Hosted by Wines of
South Africa (WOSA) and sponsored by DHL and Nampak, a flurry of international
wine buyers, journalists and assorted trade and media members descended on Cape
Town last week to check the pulse of the local wine scene, exchange ideas and
even spend some dollars, euros and pounds.
Proceedings commenced
on Tuesday with the opening seminar entitled “A New Era for
South African Wine”. Chaired by WOSA’s Siobhan Thompson, the panel was completed
by Michael Jordaan, Minister Alan Winde, Analjit Singh of Max India Limited and
Hennie Heymans from DHL. Key themes of the session included: “…our innovative spirit, the diversity of our warm and welcoming
people, our diverse and scenic winelands and our potential to draw
international investment.”. The comments of Analjit Singh were
particularly clear cut in their reinforcement of the potential of South Africa
as a country to invest in as well as the inherent value and global appeal of
our wines. The tone was confident and glowing, if not a tad predictable - even
repetitive for anyone who attended the VinPro Information Day in January this
year (which was arguably a different context and audience). Admittedly, I was
left wondering why VinPro CEO Rico Basson was not included in the opening
panel. As comforting and positive as the message being conveyed was, the
opening seminar did not offer much in terms of qualitative examples of progress
on any of the issues mentioned - a gap which VinPro could possibly have filled.
Putting together a
singular overview of a relatively vast event such as Cape Wine 2015 is tricky;
perspectives and conclusions depend largely on one’s role in the
industry and individual opinions would be further shaped by how much you made
of your own attendance. Majority opinion is that it was a great success and I
am content to support that view. As unimaginative as it might be to mention, it
deserves to be said that the organisation was excellent - as one would expect
from an international trade show. From general appearance of the hall and the
stands, ease of registration, overall layout, availability of information to
the arrangement and execution of seminars, the Cape Wine machine seemed to run
smoothly and gracefully.
I darted through the
stands on the last day, trying to find an insight to sum up my experience of
Cape Wine 2015. I found one such insight inside the bottles of exceptional
wines available for the tasting. It occurred to me that as important as tasting
the wines was (specifically for buyers and journalists), it also took a back
seat to the larger objective. While the entire event was a vibrant, affable and
generally very social affair, throughout it all there was a laser focus on the
business at hand. That said, the wines on offer were spectacular and even the
most business-like delegate would have stolen a moment to savour a few of the
many temptations.
To confirm that my
summation of Cape Wine 2015 was in step with majority opinion, I asked a number
of producers and attendees a simple question: “How did you
experience Cape Wine”? Consensus was that it had been exciting, productive and
insightful. It was also widely held that if you had found no benefit in
attending, the fault was your own and not that of the organisers or show
itself: with a substantial chunk of the international wine trade traveling
right to our doorstep, it really required only a bit of planning to make hay
while the sun shined.
By the end of the three
days, I was struck by the clear sense of cooperation that seemed to underline
the event: regions and routes sorted themselves together in corners or rows and
worked at promoting not only themselves but their neighbours and their
neighbourhood; from the Breedekloof Valley to the swinging Swartland corner,
the Hemel-en-Aarde area and the quirky Zoo Biscuit collective. The Cape
Vintners Classification (CVC) had their own stand, as well as the Pinotage and
Chenin Blanc Associations and the Sauvignon Blanc Interest Group.
This rather warmed the
cockles of my wine-soaked heart since it’s no real secret
that - on the odd occasion - trying to get our wine producers to all face in
the same direction is only marginally trickier than herding cats. My perception
of this collective feeling of togetherness was that it felt rather more
substantial and genuine than a mere temporary facade put on to smile and wave as
the world paid us a visit. No, it seemed more like a continued progression to
push South African wine towards its rightful place in the international stage.