Tim James: Drill, Baby, Drill – wine’s unlikely alliance with Big Oil

The wonderful Kogelberg Biosphere, home to 1 880 species of fynbos (and with a number of grape varieties as guests), asks on its website: “The Kogelberg and a changing climate: What can you do?” Lothian Vineyards is based in the biosphere, and even has a range of wines named for it. It has a dourly implacable – and treacherous – answer to the website question: “Drill, baby, drill”. Or maybe that’s an answer to another question and Lothian doesn’t much care about the implications for this and other biospheres.

“Drill, baby, drill” is the infamous American slogan supporting increased mining and production of fossil fuels and denying anthropogenic climate change. Especially beloved of obtuse right-wing Republicans, it was made most familiar to the world by those great leaders and friends of the planet Sarah Palin and Donald Trump (who deployed it during his latest presidential campaign and inauguration).

And it seems to be in tune with the climate politics of Lothian’s owner Gavin Wilson, who profitably spent decades in the oil and gas industry before turning to wine production in Elgin. And, connectedly, it’s also a favourite of NJ Ayuk, the Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber (he’s a controversial Cameroonian lawyer and oil and gas lobbyist once convicted of fraud and expelled from the USA, and apparently investigated for money laundering by Ghana’s central bank; and see here if you can bear to). The two of them are behind a new pop-up wine brand to be launched, with a pinot and a chardonnay, at the African Energy Week to be held in Cape Town in October.

Boldly bearing this notorious slogan “Drill baby drill”, the predominantly gold and oil-black labels are replete with images of oil and gas rigs. In what the climate-change lobby will see as breathtakingly cynical, the announcement comes with unself-conscious references to Elgin’s cool climate – this at a time when the wine industry generally (as well as environmentalists like those of the Kogelsberg Biosphere) is desperately concerned about rising temperatures and extreme climate events connected to the historical and continuing burning of fossil fuels. That cool climate is also under threat.

However, “working in harmony with nature”, is the bland boast on the website of the winery producing “Drill baby drill”.

The release article announces, it should be pointed out, that the wine label celebrates “the international energy industry and the community that invests in, builds and supports it” and also “Africa’s energy industry, investment and ambition”. The labels themselves claim “An initiative to make energy poverty history”. This is all in line with the African Energy Chamber’s account of itself, as “represent[ing] and advocat[ing] for Africa’s energy industry, bringing together governments, energy companies, investors, entrepreneurs, and international partners to promote investment and development across the continent”.

The Chamber is very obviously an advocate for the fossil fuels industry, but its rhetoric is couched in populist terms that emphasise themes of putting Africa first, development as a priority, ending poverty though development based on oil, etc. African Energy Week will, I guess, be attended by African government ministers and state industrialists galore, smirking encouragingly at the representatives of big oil and big gas. There are undoubtedly arguments to be made in favour of this developmental stance (unless you take a longer view) – but whether they need to be buttressed by a crude and vulgar intrusion from a part of the South African wine industry is surely another matter.

I would guess that the African Energy Week will pull in some more-or-less corrupt apologists for the fossil fuels industry that care as little for genuine development as they do for climate change. They, and the oil and gas companies will love these wine labels, even if some might possibly prefer a slightly subtler approach. But surely there will be some well-meaning and decent delegates too; if so, I hope they’ll be embarrassed by this egregious venture with Gavin Wilson’s winery. Perhaps even to the extent of wanting nothing to do with Lothian Vineyards at all – an avoidance I’d certainly support.

On the other hand, non-attending wine lovers who think this a great initiative will not find the wines generally available locally or abroad; they’re at Energy Week, that’s all. But that’s okay for me – I suspect they’d be a little oily for my taste.

• Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His book Wines of the New South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.