With an arguably meagre annual budget of Euro 130 000 and the colossal organisation, administrative effort, cultural sensitivity and diplomacy required to bring and keep the Great Wine Capitals Network (GWCN) together, a week of day-long meetings culminating in any kind of outcomes is a no small feat. And there were a number of those worth reporting on.
‘The Great Wine Capitals Network’s most significant contribution is in the area of wine tourism,’ Bordeaux-based wine writer Jane Anson told delegates at the organisation’s AGM last week. ‘Its work may result in a wine destination being chosen above other travel experiences.’
This generic and ultimate outcome largely defines the GWCN and its range of activities, which includes the focus areas of Business & Investment, Education, and Communication; over and above Wine Tourism.
The organisation's unofficial raison d’être was condensed into a term coined at last year’s AGM in San Francisco and one wholly unique to the Network, I was informed: ‘coopetition’. A semantic synthesis of the separate and mutually exclusive concepts of cooperation and competition, the neologism was used numerous times and by a diverse cross-section of delegates; testimony to the organisation’s evolving collective culture including a funigalore of sorts, all promising if tentative indicators of strides being made in navigating the potential incapacitating confusion that is, some comically say, the United Nations of Wine.
The body’s official reason for being? A somewhat clumsily phrased albeit necessary and unambiguous effort ‘to encourage international winery tourism, as well as economic, academic and cultural exchanges between these famous capitals of wine’.
This year’s eighth AGM newly concluded in Mendoza – the Network’s newest member and an eager one to say the least – saw the urban centres, all of economic significance to its surrounding or nearby vineyards, seizing the opportunity as a platform to put forward diverse agendas.
The Napa Valley Vintners made public their stance and efforts on place name protection, while the Spaniards presented their new generic and regional insignia and marketing strategies; the Argentineans offered insightful new research findings into investment and its key drivers in their recently revamped industry, whilst our own Cape Town rose to the occasion with a professional, absorbing and visually striking explanation of biodiversity and its implications for sustainable winegrowing.
Phrases such as ‘return on investment’ and ‘cost benefit ratio’ surfaced consistently, to the extent that it could justifiably be considered an undercurrent to or tacit theme of this year’s assembly. The Italians made no bones about their reservations in this regard in an introductory address, gravely urging members to give the matter serious consideration. If and how their sentiments evolved over the course and in the wake of the week’s deliberations, remains to be seen.
With wine tourism contributing R5,5bn annually to the city and winelands’ coffers and the region's economic growth expected to reach an exciting 6-8% in 2007, Cape Town’s presence in the Network is arguably warranted. The city was chosen to chair the organisation’s wine tourism committee in the coming year, theoretically giving it a supreme international vantage point and political platform from which to secure esteem and exposure.
Exactly how South Africa’s participation translates into concrete, measurable outcomes remains an issue as yet not satisfyingly solved and one all members seem to be wrestling with in differing degrees.
The reconnaissance mission did leave me sufficiently inspired though. There is no initiative and or event in my mind on the global wine industry’s calendar that is of more cultural consequence and political relevance.
Cape Winelands District Municipality Mayor, Councillor Clarence Johnson – who shares the funding and coordination of Cape Town’s participation with the city fathers - calls the GWCN ‘a learning network’ and one that has, through pinpointing key trends, new products and communicating research findings, made an indirect yet substantial contribution to the district’s wine tourism strategy.
At a symposium hosted by the Network as part of its official proceedings, highlights included Napa's revealing of the fascinating results of their research into origin and its primary role in motivating purchase behaviour as well as case studies in wine education and the subtleties of imaginative brand communication on a scale and of a level befitting the size and influence of the mighty US itself. Melbourne gave an inspirational glimpse into the State of Victoria’s near utopic private-public sector cooperation between wine tourism operators and government, while Rioja creatively suggested detaching wine tourism from seasonality and incorporating small rural communities in the benefits thereof.
Lastly, Jane Anson’s insights from Bordeaux advanced the Network’s shared language in an epic way. She suggested the first wave of international wine tourism to have come and gone and eloquently distinguished between ‘wine tourists’ and ‘winery visitors’, suggesting ‘going beyond the bottle’ and citing the Starbucks phenomenon - which was ‘not so much about coffee as it was about community and friendship’ – as an indication that wine tourism has to connect with a new breed of consumer.
Based purely on the merits of being privy to and a part of intellectual exchanges of such profoundness, Cape Town’s presence in the Great Wine Capitals Network is required and worthy of support. The sustainability of the grouping, however, depends less on academia (anybody can organise an international wine conference) and idealistic initiatives of questionable practicality as real-life results in, most specifically, the tasting rooms (we need a new word!) of the wineries dotting the countryside surrounding the capitals.
Jeanine Wardman was a guest of the provincial government of Mendoza and was among eight other South Africans attending, representing WOSA, the City of Cape Town, the Cape Winelands District Municipality, the Stellenbosch Municipality, the South African Black Vintners Alliance, Cape Town Routes Unlimited and Specialized Tours, an independent Cape Town-based tour operator.