| Buying with extreme (or
less extreme) prejudice
Douglas Lawrie suggests a buying strategy for a time of glut
Apparently the South African wine lake already contains
more liquid than the Theewaterskloof dam and is filling up more quickly.
What’s more, the rand seems destined to remain quite strong for some time.
South African wine producers, now that their steamy affair with the export
market is cooling down, will have to patch up their marriage with the
local buyers – or be left to sleep with their unsold stock for company. My
suggestion is that buyers should not be pushovers when the producers come
a-wooing. It will take more than chemically-induced bouquets on wines to
atone for some of the insults that consumers have had to swallow.
It would not do to punish all for the transgressions of
some; a strategy of selective and graded prejudice is called for. For my
part, I intend to treat the following producers (and their products) with
extreme prejudice:
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Those at whose
cellars local buyers were made to feel distinctly de trop, grudgingly
offered the leftovers of the export range (if any), and, to top it,
patronised. Apparently they believe ‘service’ means trying to ace
customers. |
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Those who
insisted that their spineless wines represent the height of
sophistication – and are therefore not appreciated by local yokels with
untutored palates. Even if they sincerely believed local buyers to be
philistines, it would have been wiser not to say so in what appear to be
attempts to deflect criticism. |
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Those whose
‘new style’ wines collapse in a miserable, oxidised heap when you glance
at them sharply. Two subgroups: those who loudly protest that they do
not want to chew wood when they drink white wine, but expect consumers
to chew wet cardboard with glee, and those whose ‘fruit-driven’ reds are
either driverless or ‘bitterness-driven’ after a year or so in the
bottle. |
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Those who sold
bland semi-sweet white wine and called it ‘New World chardonnay’. |
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Those who sold
astringent but otherwise insipid white wine and called it ‘Chablis-style
chardonnay’. |
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Those who
firmly believed and loudly proclaimed that advertising is what
ultimately sells products, quality being tangentially involved (if at
all). Faith, they say, moves mountains. Let’s hope their faith moves the
mountains of stock from their cellars. |
| Those who threw fits whenever anyone suggested that
possible abuses (watered wine, use of artificial flavourings,
underpaying of farm labourers) in the wine industry should be
investigated, because such suggestions ‘gave South African wine a bad
name’. As if the abuses, if they exist, would not do far more damage. |
Others who are not guiltless but perhaps not beyond
redemption are:
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Those who
marked up their stock (old stock, not a new vintage) shamelessly when
the rand plummeted, arguing that the new prices represented the new
dollar value of their wines. If they follow through consistently, I’ll
not hold anything against them. |
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Those who
have, over the past years, produced the best wines in the country,
perhaps in the world – on their own, unimpeachable testimony. They
obviously do not need my help to get their stock sold, but mere
arrogance does not leave an aftertaste on a sound, reasonably-priced
wine. Try to tempt me. |
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Those who have
for long argued that the main problem with our better wines is that they
are ridiculously cheap. I have not yet joined the queues of
bargain-hunters waiting to snap up their products, but if the
ridiculously low prices bring a smile to my lips – who knows? |
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Those who have
imposed monuments to their abundance of money and shortage of taste on
the landscape of the Western Cape. But when I drink the wine, the fake
castle is mercifully out of sight. |
I have not mentioned tasting charges, because there is,
I suppose, a case to be made for them. But many cellars impose no charge
for tasting; others (tacitly or explicitly) waive the charge when you buy
wine. To distinguish between buyers and freeloaders makes sense to me, so
I avoid places where I am forced to pay for tasting. And when producers
splash out on expensive, glossy advertisements but insist that I have to
pay to taste their wines, I start to suspect that they feel these wines
will be more impressive on paper than on the palate.
Perhaps consumers should also dish out annual awards.
Shall we give the inaugural consumers’ award to the first producer brave
and honest enough to label a red wine ‘off dry’? A future award could go
to the first producer to put (reliable) ‘best before’ dates on wines. The
jackpot could go to the first wine to state on its label: ‘For sale to
teenagers, those who have never tasted wine and those who have tasted wine
but disliked it.’
Being a little coy won’t require massive sacrifices from
consumers. Years ago I thought that those involved in the wine industry
were, with the odd exception, among the most pleasant, modest and helpful
people one can hope to find anywhere. The few newcomers who interpret ‘New
World’ to mean ‘abrasive, boastful and pushy’ have not shattered my dream.
In the Western Cape it is still easy to buy good wine at reasonable prices
from excellent people – if you drive past a few farm gates.
— Douglas Lawrie is a lecturer (in theology) at
the University of the Western Cape
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