Wines of the New South Africa. Tim James
varieties and varietalism.)
Somewhat ironically, the marketing body Wines of South Africa (WOSA) uses “Diversity is in our nature” as a central slogan in its international campaigns. This diversity refers, of course, not to imported vines but above all to the Cape floral kingdom, the world’s smallest and incomparably richest: the Cape botanical region has 1,385 species per ten thousand square kilometers (the standard measure), while the second highest figure is 340, for the Neotropic floral kingdom (the Americas from the southern parts of North America southward). Generally difficult growing conditions and a wide range of topographical and climatological factors give rise to this diversity, and since this is where most of the wine lands are situated, WOSA not unreasonably encourages a perceived alignment between the natural beauty and biodiversity of the wine lands and the image of South African wine. The link has been made more profound since 2004 through the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative, a partnership between the wine industry and important environmental bodies that encourages wine farmers to set aside land for encouraging natural flora, in a situation where invasive plant species as well as agriculture and urban creep have severely compromised the natural environment. The program seems successful, with 174 members formally conserving more than 130,000 hectares of land by 2012. One of the largest (and richest) participants, Vergelegen, in 2004 began an ambitious ten-year program to clear alien vegetation from 2,000 hectares of its land and restore the natural flora and fauna to a pristine state; leopards and honey badgers are among the more spectacular creatures caught on Vergelegen’s infrared camera installations these days. But a rare plant or bird secure in a hectare of wetland whose preservation in pristine condition the program has encouraged is as heartening.
Another expression of concern for the environment in the Cape wine industry has been the continuing and developing success of the voluntary Integrated Production of Wine scheme since 1988. Certification according to established international wine industry environmental sustainability criteria is carried out by an office responsible to the Wine and Spirit Board, which evaluates and audits members’ practices in vineyards and cellars. A seal for the bottles of qualifying members was introduced for the 2010 harvest year.
At least as significant a problem as the lack of varietal diversity in the Cape and the lack of investigation into the most suitable varieties for its conditions is the continuing widespread presence of leafroll virus. A major dereliction of the KWV’s duty as industry leader in the twentieth century was its lack of assiduity (to put it generously) in attempting to solve the problem. To the casual wine-lands visitor in late summer the problem, in fact, looks nothing other than charming, as it spreads the loveliness of autumn coloring across the landscape. But unfortunately the color change is spreading rather earlier than the season warrants: virus-affected vines will not ripen fruit as well as clean vines with green chlorophyll surging in their leaves. While a little retarding influence on ripening can in some vintages be a useful thing (while infection levels are low), the wine made from heavily affected vines is not immune from unattractive associated flavors—stewed rhubarb, perhaps! The useful life of infected vines is much more limited, too—farmers are lucky if they will produce commercially viable crops until they are twenty years old, which would give them only twelve to fifteen years of good-quality harvests. Frequent replanting adds greatly to the expense of grape farming; it also denies the possibility of making wine from old vines, which are often associated with concentrated and finer flavors.
The problem is a large and complex one, but recently there has been significant progress in developing techniques to eliminate the virus and to at least ensure that virus-free material (both rootstocks and vines of the desired variety) can be supplied for planting. After that, it is up to the farmer to control the almost inevitable reinfection (which is spread mostly through the agency of the mealybug). Prevention of leafroll virus is something that requires determination, dedication, and hard work in South Africa, and is only now becoming widespread. Few vineyards can genuinely be claimed as “virus-free” (though heavy infection is greatly reduced)—and only vineyards subjected to continual scrutiny, careful preventive measures, and ruthless replacement of any infected vine are likely to remain so.
THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE
Understandably, considering South African history, the social structure of the wine industry here is more closely scrutinized than in most parts of the world. And if slavery cast a long shadow over the wine industry after its abolition in 1834, so too has apartheid after the arrival of formal democracy in 1994. Most laborers, but precious few people at more exalted levels, in the wine cellars and vineyards of the reborn industry were and remain, in the fine racial distinctions that South Africa developed, “coloreds”—that is, of mixed race, mingling in themselves much of the industry’s human history. For wine industry workers (as for all engaged in agricultural labor), there was little protection from the apartheid-capitalist state. Wages were generally very low and housing poor. Accommodations were mostly on the farms; employees and their families were doubly dependent on the farmer.
The tot system (alcohol given to workers partly in lieu of wages, partly as a tactic of social control) goes back to the early days of slavery, and not everyone is convinced that it has disappeared even now—certainly it lasted long after it was legally abolished in 1962. Unquestionably its legacy does live on in the wine lands, in the endemic alcoholism that causes untold misery, and in the widespread fetal alcohol syndrome that blights so many lives. The wine industry is largely responsible for this legacy and has never adequately taken up the challenge of trying to address it—although, of course, it is a problem inextricably bound up with larger structures of poverty and degradation and requires a broad social solution, something much more thoroughgoing than moralizing, charitable patches, or simplistic attempts to medicalize the issue.
John Platter mused wryly on some of the social ironies of the wine industry in the new South Africa, in an “assessment of prospects in a sanctions-free world” in his 1996 Guide:
For connoisseurs of such things, the piquancy of how the new black government saved the white owned wine farming industry from growing insolvency is exquisite. It took a virtual teetotaling President Nelson Mandela—and an ANC-led government with a largely non-wine drinking, beer-thirsty African constituency—to bale out wine growers, mainly Afrikaner, mainly Nationalist Party voters who supported the 27-year incarceration of the man who opened the door to a sanctions-free, export-led recovery. No signs, of course, of discomfiture among the rescued—politesse deems it uncivil to even mention it.
The issue of “transformation” (a concept immediately understood by all South Africans to have racial connotations) is complex and sensitive, and it is impossible to do more here than highlight selected points within the complexities. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in most aspects of social relations, the wine industry is less transformed than many other sectors of South African society, despite some specific pockets of change and some broader areas of improvement. This is true at all levels, from the question of who owns land to the situation of the often unmotivated, inadequately trained people working on it.
In the absence of a radical national land agenda and because of the high value of most vineyard land and the high cost of working it, it is unsurprising that there has been virtually nothing in the way of land redistribution to alter the pattern of white ownership. A few ultrarich black individuals or black-involvement consortiums have acquired direct interest in or ownership of wineries: left-wing-politician-turned-capitalist Tokyo Sexwale, for example, some years back bought a wine farm in Franschhoek (though nothing has been heard of it or its wines since then); and a consortium he leads bought half of Constantia Uitsig. Somewhat less rich (as most people are, of course), former cabinet minister Valli Moosa now produces the Ecology range off his Bot River property, Paardenkloof; and members of the more modest Rangaka family have a vineyard in Stellenbosch and a brand, M’hudi, with the wines made at Villiera Estate.
Of rather more relevance to broader transformation, some significant “land and brand” projects have been undertaken. These are generally joint ventures between farmers and their workers, with the latter acquiring in various ways (government-sponsored or farmer-facilitated) part ownership of land and winery businesses, usually indirectly through shares or trust units. Examples of such partnerships include Thandi (vineyard ownership, with the brand part-owned by the large Company of Wine