At the first stand we visited at the Soweto Wine and Brandy Festival last Saturday, my friends and I listened with half an ear to the winemaker’s detailed description of different winemaking processes, lifting our empty glasses during his pauses and darting glances at the several wine bottles on the table as he spoke.
My companions soon got the hang of wine tasting and, while deftly swirling their wine, remarks such as ‘leathery”, ‘definitely a wooded wine” and ‘a well-balanced blend” fell seriously and in jest from their stained lips.
The second annual Wine and Brandy Tasting Festival took place from September 1 to 3 at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto campus.
A R35 ticket gained you access to about 100 wineries showcasing more than 600 wines and brandies ranging from R25 to R800 a bottle, according to one of the staff.
Compared with last year’s festival, the number of attendants had doubled to about 3 000 people, said Marilyn Cooper of the organising institution, the Cape Wine Academy. ‘The aim of the festival has always been to bring wine to the people,” she said. It also helps introduce wine farmers to the market and expose people to new wines.
Lindhorst Wine sales manager Marietjie Niemand said that getting their wine into five more restaurants and selling bottles to a few attendants would have made the festival worth it for the small estate.
Some commented that the event was an exercise in class formation, but not everyone who attended the festival came to adopt a middle-class affectation. Festival-goer Constance Mgqalelo said she wanted to become a bar lady and her companion, Gessler Makumbila, wanted to find out more about wine after buying a lousy bottle to take to a football match.
‘In the past, the industry ignored the fact that the majority of the people of this country are black,” said assistant winemaker Dumisani Mathosini at the Tokara stand. He described the festival as a building block that would help people develop greater wine appreciation.
Several people in the wine industry said the participants and the festival were refreshingly unpretentious, and most attendants admitted to only a rudimentary knowledge of wine.
‘To be honest, it’s the first time I have been to a wine tasting,” said Mbali Khumalo. She felt there was ‘too much information, you’re more interested about the taste”, but concluded that ‘it’s a very good vibe”.
However, because the event was framed in terms of introducing wine to a non-wine-drinking black culture, a fiction emerged that race (without reference to class) was the marker of a discerning and cultured palate.
‘Black people don’t know the difference between a wine to go with appetisers and a wine for after meals,” said Sipho Mjoli. ‘The white people know their stuff, the black people just drink anything.”
Mjoli was one of 60 University of Johannesburg students who took a crash course in wine tasting to help staff the show.
‘We need to be introduced to something that is different,” said Mjoli. ‘We shouldn’t just drink beer.”
The venue was generically styled and the lack of overt efforts at township chic suggested that Soweto had not been chosen as an exotic locale, but to promote the organiser’s goal of targeting the township market and increasing investment there.
As we entered the building, my friends and I each received a glass bearing the inscription ‘Soweto Wine and Brandy Festival” and a little booklet to jot down tasting notes.
We walked a short passageway to a huge and brightly lit arena, circled by bleachers.
Pausing in the entrance area, we were overwhelmed by the sea of tables, each holding several bottles of wine, stacks of business cards and pamphlets and trays of crackers, presided over by two representatives from each estate wearing severe black aprons.
At each stand the official legend bearing the name of the estate was overshadowed by banners bearing coats of arms and curlicue writing, images such as the brightly coloured giraffes on the Tall Horse labels and ubiquitous landscapes of rolling hills and Cape houses.
The evening ended when a power failure plunged the festival into darkness at 10pm, admittedly only minutes before its scheduled conclusion. It was an appropriately theatrical ending to an event dedicated to honing the performative identity of a wine connoisseur. But, undeterred by the loss of light, one dedicated participant flicked on his cellphone and, in the penumbra of its bluish glow, requested some Sauvignon Blanc.