Everything from heat exchangers to crabutet noir
4 October 2007

The latest edition of the Wine Industry Directory is reviewed by Tim James

SA Wine Industry Directory 2007/8. Edited by Romi Boom. Published by WineLand Publications. 600 pages, soft cover. SA retail price R180

Some people are never satisfied – especially book reviewers, perhaps, who can seem to think that books should be written expressly to meet their own needs and wishes. The SA Wine Industry Directory has been appearing almost annually for a decade now, and I am pleased to have a copy of the latest edition. And yet, I’m not satisfied, and want it to do more, and some things differently.

I also wish it did less – it is hard for me to imagine, for example, ever needing an alphabetical list of assistant winemakers (or even the list of proper winemakers and viticulturists), whose names are also all given under the properties they are connected to). I presume, though, that it answers the requirements of some section of the industry professionals that this book is primarily directed to, so I should no doubt shut up about that.

Obviously it is professionals of a particular type who will need lists of distribution agents and suppliers of industry stuff like harvest bins and heat exchangers, and for them the Directory is probably well-nigh indispensible. But anyone at all who wants a beautifully neat and clear list of wineries and their telephone numbers, names of personnel (managers, assistant winemakers etc), and so on, will find this information much more spaciously and readably presented than in the cramped and crammed space of the Platter Guide, for example – though a little less up-to-date. The listings related to wine producers occupies nearly half of the book.

Also of general use, the winelands maps are clear and comprehensive – though they’d be a good deal clearer if the designers would be content to be less artistic (fussy could be a less generous description) about it all: the last edition had odd little pictures accompanying the maps, this one has inexplicable patterns of large grey discs on the lighter dull grey that predominates (even the sea is allowed to be blue only at its edges before it too becomes the same gloomy grey as the land!).

What more would is wanted? It would surely be desirable for many people to have more information given about the important industry organisations. Presumably, at present each organisation mentioned more or less writes its own story, more or less usefully and imaginatively: for what editorial justification could there be for the Chenin Blanc Association to occupy as much space as the SA WIne Industry Council, for example, and for the Wine and Spirit Board to have a third as many pages as the largely irrelevant Institute of Cape Wine Masters (which  presents the titles of all the papers ever written by successful candidates)? And there’s not even a bare mention of any of the trade unions active in the industry – one wonders about the significance of this omission.

It is also perhaps curious that there is comparatively little about the law as it affects wine-farmers: about permitted additives, labour legislation and suchlike (apart from some material on labelling requirements and the bare bones of the Wine or Origin system), though there is a list of the names and scopes of the relevant Acts.  Perhaps this is too large a topic, or series of topics, to be able to deal with usefully and widely. Yet to plead that this is a ‘directory’ rather than a comprehensive ‘handbook’, say, doesn’t explain why there should be a good deal of information about topics like the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative and the Integrated Production of Wine, and a chapter describing wine cultivars (in which you can, should you possibly want to, learn that crabutet noir is a synonym for merlot, but for some reason none of the grape’s other synonyms).

The first time I reviewed this book – it must be ten years ago – it was necessary to draw attention to some very bad writing and inadequate proofreading. Happily, that’s far from necessary now – it’s all very competently achieved by the WineLands team under Cassie du Plessis. No doubt it’ll never be perfect for all sections of its intended readership, so let’s just give it a warm welcome and recommendation. At it’s price, it is certainly good value, and I have no doubt that, although I shall get occasionally exasperated at not finding something I think should be there and is not, I shall also find it occasionally indispensible over the next year or so of its shelf-life.