For many reasons, including the fact that I couldn’t pronounce the names, I’ve always looked on wine and its surrounding etiquette as a snobbish pastime for the grey and over-privileged. Many of the brand names still sound like toasts to colonial excess — an impression reinforced by the fact that the local industry remains less than 1% black-owned. Yet, black vintners are starting to come out of the woodwork in unprecedented numbers, surfing the wave of increasing wine consumption among blacks.
Mpho Omotola, a wine analyst and buyer for South African Airways, is a case in point. Omotola began pilfering her mother’s supply as a teenager, staging her own private wine tastings at home. Despite her early interest in “training her palette”, it wasn’t until 1997, when she did a wine course as part of her hotel management diploma at Damelin, that she was formally introduced to wine protocol.
According to the Wine of the Month Club, sales to black South Africans through the initiative now comprise about 20% of total sales, with limitless potential for growth. “More and more women are going out,” says Omotola. “They associate wine with sophistication — and many can afford it.”
“Globally, women buy 70% of the wine produced,” says Jeanie Fletcher, proprietor of fledgling brand Yamme (“my mother’s” in seTswana, her home tongue). “And the wine industry is not yet targeting women adequately. You have an emergent, black middle-class who are in powerful corporate positions and who wine and dine their clients.”
In a strategic bid to win more visibility for her brand, Fletcher has latched on to this niche market. But she is not keen to ghettoise her brand. “I think we should look at our product as South African wine,” she says. “We regularly participate in tastings so that we can be judged on merit and not because it’s a black-owned wine.”
Emergent vintners face daunting difficulties. “We have no cellar facilities, so every stage [of production] becomes a struggle,” says Mzo Mvemve, who produces the Indaba brand for Cape Classic Wines as well as his own Sagila label, under Sagila Wines.
“You have to get the approval of a farmer who’s thinking, ‘Will this guy be able to pay me for my grapes?’” Mvemve says that his venture is not yet reaping financial rewards, but he is in it for the long haul. “I’m trying to demystify wine and show people that anyone can do this.”
Mvemve believes there is still a lot of fronting in the industry, with loopholes being exploited to gain fair trade benefits. These give local and “community” producers access to foreign markets.
Charles Erasmus, CEO of the South African Wine Industry Trust, says a draft wine charter, providing clear guidelines for black empowerment in the wine industry, is almost ready for public comment, pending “input by producers and civil society”.
Jeff Grier, who runs his family’s Villiera Wine Farm in the Western Cape, insists that black wine growers should not be seen as a threat, but as a bridgehead into the emergent black market. White, young wine drinkers are on the decline; they prefer other alcoholic drinks, particularly coolers.
Back at South African Airways, I was getting my belated induction into the wine-tasting set by Omotola. We started with Yamme, which she described as “youthful, light straw with a green tinge”. Clutching the stem of her wine glass, she placed it on the table and swirled it into a gentle whirlpool and “nosed” it. I mimicked her poorly, almost spilling my sample on the woodwork.
“What flavours come up?” she asked. I returned an embarrassed, quizzical silence. “Because it’s a sauvignon, nê, some people will pick up gooseberries or peppers.” I nodded in manufactured agreement. “Or even cat’s pee,” I suggested, with the novice’s lack of discrimination.
Omotola explained that the same variety of grape varies in flavour from country to country, as well as with the temperature at which it is cultivated.
We went through several more bottles and by the time we got to the 2004 Buitenverwachting wooded chardonnay, I was slightly more attuned to its lime, citrus and grass aromas.
So, come September, when the next Soweto Wine and Brandy Festival takes place, I’ll probably be there. But this time I’ll come armed with vaguely the right mannerisms.