Time to go east instead of north? 14 August 2007

Trizanne Pansegrouw, Anwilka winemaker, goes to an important conference in Australia – and wonders why so few South Africans were there

It’s the time of year for many local winemakers to pack their bags for a northern hemisphere harvest, to experience the food, culture and classic wines (but not always hygienic cellar practices - I dare say!).

This year I was privileged instead to head ‘down under’ to the land of roos, mates, stubbies and the 13th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) in Adelaide – and what a stimulating and inspiring revelation it was.

The first conference was held in 1970 and incorporated as a body in 1987 with two members, the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) and the Australian Society of Viticulture and Oenology. Today, expatriate South African Professor Sakkie Pretorius heads the AWRI.

At this year’s triennial conference 18 international speakers and 36 Australian speakers offered a wealth of cutting-edge plenary sessions and workshops - topics which dealt with current and emerging issues concerning management and practices viticulture and winemaking. (And if all the chemistry went over your head, there was a poster room of research projects, and a trade exhibition featuring products and services from around the globe.)

The conference spanned all areas of interest in the wine industry and was attended by 1 600 learning, teaching, networking international delegates – only 15 of whom were South African! Where were the rest of us? Our gurus, consultants, laboratory representatives, viticulturists, marketers, journalists, winemakers, product and technical representatives, researchers? Our industry? Don’t we need to hear and address these global issues that were addressed in a collective, rather than competitive way? (We’re not talking rugby here.)

This handful of local delegates included members of the Graham Beck and KWV teams, some researchers from the Stellenbosch’s Department of Wine Biotechnology, our Taransaud barrels rep, Lourensford’s viticulturist and Adam Mason, Klein Constantia winemaker.

We were given the opportunity to learn from industry leaders, exchange opinions and experiences, and to bring home knowledge we can actually apply. With only a handful attending events of this stature, how are we possibly going to achieve bridging the gap between research and industry, industry and consumer?

We’ve come a far way since 1994, but there’s no time to relax – the Generation Y consumer is the most influential consumer, but also the hardest to retain, thus we need to continuously improve, innovate and create the best, using the tools available out there. Let’s  not be left behind.