SOUTH AFRICA ON-PREMISE: Tasting the Difference

The grapes look pretty good considering. The previous week temperatures had hit 45°C in some places in the Cape, but Eben Archer reckons the soil saved them. “It’s got great drainage you see – not too much clay,” he explains. Professor Archer is the viticulturist for the Neethlingshof Wine Estate in Stellenbosch and he’s taking us on a tour of his vineyards.

By us I mean 18 restaurateurs and sommeliers (and one wine hack), invited by Wines of South Africa (WOSA) as part of their innovative Escape to the Cape on-trade initiative, which made its inaugural trip this time last year.

Sure, WOSA is looking for more on-trade listings, but it also wants to raise awareness of South African wine in the on-trade. It currently has a 6% share in the UK on-trade by volume and value, and the on-trade accounts for 12% of overall UK sales.

“We are keen to ensure that the image of South African wines continues to improve, along with the quality of the wines, so that we can appeal to customers looking to experiment beyond house wines,” says Jo Mason, WOSA’s new UK market manager. “South Africa’s appeal is in its variety and diversity; to convey this we need on-trade customers to feel confident trying a wine outside their traditional comfort zone. It’s important to build awareness for the wines and their styles in order to ensure South Africa becomes a ‘must list’ for wine lists.”

The plan – a two-year plan, incidentally – is to invite out a total of 100 key buyers and sommeliers  to show them what the country is capable of during a whistle-stop six day tour of the wine regions including Stellenbosch, Elgin, Robertson, Durbanville and Franschhoek.

This year we clocked up 16 wineries, visited top restaurants, and attended a number of varietal tastings and food and wine matching dinners – not forgetting the rather choppy sunset sail in a catamaran around Table Bay, trying to avoid any sharks lurking in the area.

And while Jason McAuliffe’s kebab was sneakily jettisoned over the side in a bid to lure them towards us, Ronan Sayburn’s thigh might have tasted better. Gordon Ramsay’s wine director decided to stay on for a few days to dive with the great whites – in a cage, of course. And yes, fingers and toes are still intact, he reports.

So yes, the escapees were a pretty starry bunch this year. After Sayburn and McAuliffe, who is currently presiding over the list at The Grill in The Dorchester, participants included Christine Parkinson of Hakkasan and Yauatcha, John Hoskins MW of the Huntsbridge Group, plus several other hotel, restaurant and pub chain operators who all returned to the UK pledging to list more South African wines. So job done WOSA – up to a point.

Identity crisis
While Parkinson already sells a few South African wines on her list, she admits that the country’s wines could be better represented. “But I haven’t had a reason to list them. It always comes down to distinctive style. Australia has managed to convince us that they have wines with such a distinctive style that we have to have them on our lists – Coonawarra Cabernet, for example. South Africa might have got as far as Robertson Chardonnay and Constantia Sauvignon Blanc – but really what are they all about? It’s an identity issue. Regionality is the key to unlocking sales further. It has worked for Australia, it’s beginning to work for Chile – and it should work for South Africa. Ironically, the most distinctive styles for me were the Bordeaux blends, but they didn’t seem to come from any one particular region.”

Graham Price agrees. The co-owner of the 14-strong pub group Brunning & Price, based mostly in north-west Britain, also thinks that it’s those regional differences WOSA should be highlighting, not “blarney about flowers”. “I want to know that Robertson Chardonnay has a softer, more limey character to it – it’s much easier to sell it to the customer that way,” says Price, who also found the blended reds of most interest. “They haven’t got anything to hang their hat on – no identity.”

Each Brunning & Price pub has an average of 50 wines on its list, and depending on where they are located in the country, from Tunbridge Wells (The Hare at Langton Green) to North Wales (the Pen-y-Bryn in Colwyn Bay), some lists are split by style – “for customers who are less wine-savvy” – others by variety. Wine at Brunning & Price pubs represents a healthy 30% of wet sales, with customers knocking back up to 200,000 bottles a year – and it’s particularly this market WOSA wants to collar.

You can expect to see a few more South African Chenin Blancs on UK wine lists after the trip. A tasting held at Kleine Zalze turned a few doubters, though WOSA did send in the big guns – Ken Forrester, Bruwer Raats, and hosts Kleine Zalze.

“I think Chenin Blanc is the best suited white to our climate,” declares Forrester. “But it is absolutely site specific. We’re eight miles from the ocean here – next stop Antarctica.”

“We’re very concerned that Chenin doesn’t go the Chardonnay route,” adds Raats, a Chenin specialist, whose mates told him he was mad to plant it, but now produces some of the country’s best. “But we think we’ve learned our lesson – if there’s too much wood people don’t want to drink it.

“Chenin has this ability to give you fantastic aromatics and you can eat practically anything with it. I think it will play a huge role in South Africa’s white wines – what we thought was a donkey is now a thoroughbred,” concludes Raats, with a grin.

“I’d written Chenin off until I tasted these,” mutters Tracy Perkins from the two AA Rosette-rated Forest Hotel in Dorridge, near Solihull, who has 60 wines on her list, and offers 11 by the glass. “But you need another white grape variety, don’t you, apart from Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc? And Chenin is very useful, especially, as we’ve seen, on the food pairing side of things. I’m always looking for new varieties to sell.”

Thirst for knowledge
Sayburn initially felt the same about Pinotage. “I don’t buy it because so far I haven’t found any decent ones. There’s too much vintage variation, it’s just too risky,” he moaned at the beginning of the trip, though by the end he had changed his mind. Stellenbosch producer Laibach laid on a positive Pinotage tasting that included those from Kanonkop, Beyerskloof and Warwick.

Saburn already has a decent line-up from South Africa on his 800-bin wine list at the Ramsay flagship on Royal Hospital Road – eight whites and ten reds at the last count, with many of the top names represented.

It helps, some, that they have a South African sommelier within the group (Mark Botes at the Boxwood Café) who keeps Sayburn up to date with what’s going on in the Cape. One particularly good seller for Sayburn is Ken Forrester’s ‘T’ Noble Late Harvest Chenin Blanc, while Elgin producer Iona’s Sauvignon Blanc is the house white at another Ramsay outpost, The Connaught, in London.

There are only five producers in Elgin, and we caught up with them all at a tasting held at Paul Cluver Wines (the united front shown by many producers across all the regions we visited particularly impressed the group).

The Sauvignon Blancs get a thumbs up from most, but the jury is still out on Elgin reds. “They’re not there yet but the fruit does show you the potential of the region,” observes Hoskins. Perkins agrees: “The reds were distinctly unpolished – but I want to come back and look at them in five years time.”

While Perkins is mainly looking for wines that offer value for money at the lower end of the price spectrum, there are plenty in the group who are now willing to push the more premium level, reckoning that their customers are ready to pay a bit more for South African wines.

Lee Venables is the director of the seven-strong Covent Garden Restaurants group and while each outlet offers a modest selection of wines – just 12 reds, 12 whites and three rosés, his most expensive wine is from South Africa – Warwick Estate’s Cabernet Franc, on the list at £40, and apparently selling well at The Rock Garden, rather incongruously. “I need grapes that people understand, but we always try and include something less familiar,” says Venables.

“But you’ve got to be a real wine buff to know about the high-end South African wines in this country and that needs to change,” criticises Price, who is only now – post-trip – considering whether to persuade his licencees to list some of South Africa’s more premium wines. “We’ll tip-toe into it, but I think the customers are ready. If we get the wording right and the prices work.”

Any other sharp words for WOSA? Parkinson wasn’t too keen (nor were a few of the others) on the “Variety is in our Nature” biodiversity campaign currently running, launched by WOSA in London last October. “I think it’s very misguided, however pretty. What has the Cape Floral Kingdom got to do with wine? We drove through regions where vines are a monoculture and we know they’ve got issues with vine health – I just don’t think the on-trade will buy it,” she predicts.

So what else should South Africa be doing to help improve sales in this sector? “They should be coming over here more – sitting down with us and slogging it out like the Aussies did, telling us why they are the only country in the world that can make good Chenin Blanc. They need to be more visible,” declares Parkinson. You heard the girl – get your bums over here fast.

 Â© db March 2007