Stuck in the middle no more

As you read this thousands will be in New Zealand soaking up the Rugby World Cup atmosphere and sipping Kiwi wine. Chances are a fair few of my South African countrymen will be among them. Winter is the worst time for us immigrants — because rugby is New Zealand’s enduring love affair we get ribbed on a daily basis. Respite came in 1995 and 2007 of course, but these sweet, rare victories were so far apart. On a recent visit to my homeland I promised my teenage daughter not to visit wineries, do tastings or schlepp her around the trade. So we set out on a weird journey of eating and tasting the way visitors to my country do — trawling secondhand bookshops and dining at Mexican places like Panchos. The South African wine industry has a long and illustrious history, with glorious homesteads deeply steeped in tradition. The magnitude of change this 350-year-old industry has undergone over the past 20 years is mind boggling. It has had to break the shackles of rigorous regulation — including quotas, varietal selection, minimum pricing and removal of surplus wine — apartheid rule and a few centuries of tradition since independence in 1990.

Wine farmers (as wine makers there are called) commented on how horribly insecure usually supremely confident professionals felt. Three young winemakers visiting us in 1993 were appalled at widespread use of oak chips and chaptelisation (adding sugar) in the industry’s ‘new world’. These techniques were simply not right in the minds of these ‘old world’ types. So what has changed? Well, almost everything. The style of the wine has evolved enormously. The global demand for quality and ‘clean’ wine forced new thinking. Fruit expression is brighter yet the elegant constraint of the old world hand is still evident, securing a unique style.

The spoilage yeast brettanomyces was a hallmark of the old South African style, particularly among wine estates where tradition dictated wine making. The concerted effort to eliminate it from wineries showed in the wines I tasted. ‘Flying winemakers’ who learned techniques in many countries can largely take credit for this drastic directional change.

South African winemakers are determined to create their own style of sauvignon blanc. Bread and butter to us, the grapes are sought after and expensive there.

These sauvignons did not excite me much, but the re-emergence of chenin blanc caused a flurry of interest in my wine list repertoire. Chenin should have been to South Africa what sauvignon is to New Zealand. It gives an additional dimension and, like Kiwi sauvignon, is a wine list workhorse. Wine makers there are experimenting with style and technique and with a bit of bottle age, these wines are brilliant.

Screw caps are topping many a South African wine bottle these days. They are de rigueur downunder, but a big mind shift for South Africans. When Kiwis were leading the screw cap charge, South African wine makers and the public were scathing about the caps. But the wines that showed best all had screw capped bottles.
Sipping a stunning chardonnay at lunch on the stoep (veranda) of an old friend’s 300-year-old estate (this guy virtually lives in a museum), the impact of the changes of the past two decades hit me. The wine industry there is not ‘old world’ yet not ‘new world’, has deeply held values, traditions and responsibilities, so has made for a hard transition to a demanding new global wine market. It also dawned on me that not having wine tradition is not such a bad thing. Europe is a natural market for South Africa’s wine, the big challenge is North America. My hope is the country’s wine will find a place among consumers who think South Africa is difficult to unravel. It is not only the splendor and beauty of the place that makes it so spectacular. It is the resilience and grit, the humour and generosity of a new nation, woven together with its different fibres and many colours.

It is, after all, the only place in the world where you can hire snakes and rats to scare people off — and where you can buy everything at the traffic lights.

Gesondheid!