A new research institute aims to make South African wines the toast of the world, writes Lesley Cowling
PROFESSOR Sakkie Pretorius and his family had started packing, getting ready to move across the world. He’d been offered a dream job – head of a big research institute in New Zealand, where he would have the staff and resources to work in his field, microbiology. But it meant leaving Stellenbosch and friends and family in South Africa.
Then the wine industry finalised a plan that had been in the pipeline for months and decided to fund a wine research institute. It would be at Stellenbosch University, and they wanted Pretorius to run it.
#Pretorius still smiles and shakes his head as he remembers the last-minute change in plans and how his life and his family’s suddenly turned around.
Any regrets he may have had about the New Zealand job have been overtaken by his excitement at the new project, his plans for the new building and the good news that the Department of Trade and Industry will match part of the wine industry’s R5-million contribution.
But his story illustrates the importance of industry-academic co-operation in South Africa’s science and technology sector: it allows for research opportunities that have, until recently, been rare.
The goals for the Institute of Wine Biotechnology are fairly simple: a growth in foreign earnings from wine and an increase in income and jobs in rural wine communities. It will also tackle problems that come up for producers, winemakers and wholesalers.
But achieving those goals takes sophisticated methods. Wine, despite its romantic image of vats and vineyards, is as technological as the next industry. And wine industries all over the world compete for a slice of the market and have to be abreast of the latest wine-drinking fashions.
Pretorius says that South Africa is ranked 20th in the world in terms of hectares under grapevine, but ranked about eighth in terms of its products. This is a good position, but holding on to it will take work.
It starts with the vineyards: cultivating the right sorts of grapes, keeping pesticide levels down and developing agricultural methods. When its time for wine-making, you’re into the science of enzymes and yeasts – an area Pretorius, as a world leader in microbiology, understands.
#”In France, it is very fashionable to have spontaneous fermentation,” he says. That’s when wine-makers allow the yeasts already on the grapes to determine what kind of wine will develop. It gives the wine a complex character, because it has grown from a combination of many yeasts.
#Most countries, however, go for one particular yeast. This means removing all yeasts already in the grapes and replacing them with one the winemakers know and understand. Although this makes for a simpler wine, it has some advantages – its predictability. Wine-drinkers know pretty much what they’re going to get and some like familiarity (as the popularity of champagnes like Mot et Chandon shows).
Pretorius says the South African wine industry has decided on a middle way – not spontaneous fermentation, but using a combination of yeasts to get some complexity. The work of the wine institute will experiment with yeast combinations.
South Africa does well in middle-range wines, but doesn’t really compete internationally when it comes to top-class wines. This is another area for development, Pretorius says, as the high-quality wine market is very lucrative and would generate far more foreign income.
#Another area that is important is acidity: Pretorius says South African wines don’t have the right acidity and, like many other countries, adds D-malic acid to adjust the wines. This was used as an excuse, one year, to take South African wines off European shelves, until South African wine-makers pointed out to the European Union that many other wines with D-malic acid were being sold from other countries. The EU relented.
Pretorius says the problem arose from competitors in Germany, worried about the inroads South African wines were making into their markets. But it is important to head such problems off by knowing the technology (both here and internationally) so well that you can argue your case, he says.
#The institute will collaborate with Elsenburg Agricultural College and the Nietvoorbij Insitute for Viticulture and Oenology and also with international counterparts. Students will be sent to an institution in Adelaide, Australia – “collaborating with the competition”, Pretorius calls it – to learn from the successful Australian experience with wine.
The Australians very cleverly decided to focus on Chardonnay, which has become a very popular wine in consumer countries. But they did well in other wines, too, and last year outdid South Africa in a wine competition, winning eight out of 11 categories – this despite being a relative newcomer to wine- making.
This showed that South Africa’s wine-makers can no longer rest on their laurels. Tradition is not the most vital ingredient for good wines – knowledge is. This new initiative will hopefully help South Africa catch up.