One of the aspects of the old South African wine industry, harking back to when it was still run by the KWV, is the aversion shown to media queries deemed troublesome. Journalists daring to ask questions about South African wine matters and legislation considered probing and veering away from the industry’s official “need-to-know basis” were usually brushed off, avoided and deemed prickly shit-stirrers.
Ask any hack seeking answers surrounding the KWV’s illicit trading in fake Champagne in the early 1990s, or the extent of farm-worker riots in the winelands at the same time, and they will concur: you reached a firmly closed door.
After the KWV was privatised in 1997, the attitudes of industry bodies towards journalists hardly improved. During Su Birch’s reign of terror as head of Wines of South Africa (Wosa), I penned a piece questioning Wosa’s lacklustre and ineffective methods of promoting Cape wines internationally. Galled to the hilt, Vinpro – the producers’ arm that had evolved from the KWV – called me in to explain myself. I was eloquently crapped on from a dizzy height for not supporting valiant industry marketing efforts and for simply not understanding the hard times grape growers and winemakers were facing.
Journalists have thick skins, and reactions of the passive-aggressive kind largely blow over. Currently, relations between industry bodies – such as SA Wine and Wines of South Africa – and the media are largely non-existent, the only communication from the industry side being the odd press release underscoring continued resilience and regenerative farming traits of which we, as interested parties in Cape wine, should be proud. So be it.
However, once a viable query arises and a penner of vinous words seeks an answer, the industry does the old trick of jumping back down into the bolt-hole.
At issue is a recent piece of South African wine legislation concerning the letter “s”. One letter. And it is not “sharp”, “Shiraz” or – least of all – “sensible”.
A few producers alerted me to the oracles of wine officialdom who had initiated a move to change the words “Old Vine” that said winemakers have implemented on their labels. One must remember that Old Vine wines are, by the very industry officialdom itself, deemed a shining light of the local wine industry, one it actively encourages producers to promote. And quite rightly so.
Well, the folk at the Wine Certification Authority are concerned about the use of “Old Vine” on a wine label, as consumers could allegedly be misled into thinking that the contents of the bottle are made from one single vine. To avoid the continuation of this immense deviance, an old-vine producer must therefore amend “Old Vine” on the marque to “Old Vines”. Because consumers apparently have a rightful need to know that the wine in question is made from an old vineyard constituting a number of vine plants. And only if the juice originates from one single vine plant may one drop the “s” and state that this is an “Old Vine” wine. Interesting to see, then, if the Old Vine Project which manages this part of the industry will be requested to become the Old Vines Project.
I am not going to opine on the merits and logic of this bit of nonsense, but for the sake of thorough clarity and objective reporting for an article I am writing for Die Burger newspaper, I contacted the officials at SA Wine. Wanda Augustyn, professional and courteous as ever, acknowledged this vine-to-vines amendment and helpfully gave me the relevant contact details for the Wine Certification Authority.
A simple missive requesting confirmation, reason and clarity for the sake of communicating wine-industry legislation in a daily newspaper has, to date, been ignored. Another friendly official from SA Wine assured me that the Wine Certification Authority had been prompted to react to the media query, and it is interesting to note that said official and their body have been ignored too.
Back to this piece of legislation concerning “Old Vine” and “Old Vines”: does the certification body not have anything better to do, or is it trying to justify its existence by concocting ridiculous red-tape snippets such as this?
An example of a surely more urgent matter, and one to which the Wine Certification Authority was alerted last year, is the selling and marketing of a “wine” made from oranges under the label “Orange Wine”. Fermented oranges, sold as South African wine. No action has been taken on this by the relevant authorities, who are probably too busy analysing petty wine nomenclature rather than acting where action is actually needed.
Save one’s gunpowder for the big game, and stop wasting it on the dassies. Or, as you wish, the dassie.
Enjoyed this article?
Subscribe and never miss a post again.
It sounds a good idea for the Old Vine Project to become the Old Vines Project as it is a more accurate description.
However, to talk about an “Old Vines” wine, becomes a tong-twister, especially after a few glasses of wine. Will you be talking about a wine, or about a pig (swine)?
How on earth would anyone with a shred of logic or even the slightest understanding of the workings of nature ever think that a wine had been made from a one single vine?
Should the producers of other fruit products now label them as Strawberries Jam? Tomatoes Sauce? Or Onions Marmalade? (Knowing from experience that it takes a helluva lot more than one strawberry plant, one tomato, or one onion to make a jar of said products!)
Paying attention to the so-called Orange Wine (or should that be Oranges Wine?) seems a far more urgent task to deal with a product that is misleading consumers. Don’t the very regulations say that wine must be made from grapes? So that’s a clear, unambiguous violation of the law.
I suggest you send your article, verbatim, to anyone who will publish it.