Editorial: Stagnation, transformation and succession in SA wine

The FedEx Next Generation Awards, which set out to identify the best winemakers under the age of 35, are hardly an original idea. The 30 Under 30 as run by business magazine Forbes dates from 2011. Charge card company Diners Club has underwritten the Young Winemaker of the Year Award as an adjunct to its Winemaker of the Year Award since 2001. Industry magazine WineLand started its own 30 under 30 in 2020.

How much should South African fine wine be engaging with the issue of succession? Some might argue that there’s nothing to worry about. The sector is not hindered by a lack of know-how. Advancement of technologies, or even positive retreat from such, are being well applied – drones in the vineyard, clay amphora in the cellar. There’s also still plenty of investment from both local and international stakeholders. Wine quality seems to go up and up.

Let’s, however, acknowledge that there is a massive disconnect between commodity and fine wine. More than three quarters of wine sells for under R50 per litre and roughly two-thirds in packaging other than glass. Of the over 9,000 wines on the market, 5% account for 80% of sales.

So how robust is the industry really? Unfortunately, it seems quite happy to remain deliberately dumbed down so as to appeal to the largest possible number of people – in 1994, Chenin Blanc and Colombar were the top two varities when it came to production and in 2024, Chenin Blanc and Colombar are still the top two varieties. Another way of looking at things is that the industry’s largest corporate player, namely Heineken seems to have largely ceded the top-end of the market.

It must be said, however, that SA fine wine has had a good run over the last three decades, a small sliver of the overall industry thought it may be. Better product results from competition, experimentation and free-thinking and our top 20 or 30 producers have succeeded fabulously, which has led to a rise in standards at the next level of the market, as those just behind them have emulated.

Market dynamics were in also in favour of SA fine wine, the UK and European trade and media enamoured with the collective offering for a long while. The incoming intel, however, is that there are now shifts among opinion-makers towards other countries of the day. If change within the industry isn’t afoot, then it ought to be.

Transformation is happening. Many of our top producers now prefer not to own land, thereby avoiding high upfront investment and ongoing maintenance expenses. Equally, there have been too many links in the supply chain for way too long, and it was remarkable to witness how many wineries adopted digital technologies to facilitate direct-to-consumer sales when Covid-19 disrupted business as usual.

Stagnation and decline are also happening. The number of primary grape growers has dropped from 4,786 in 1991 to 2,487 in 2022. In 2024, the total area under vineyard amounted to 87,848ha, down from an all-time high of 101,259ha in 2009. As alluded to above, complacency, lack of innovation, and resistance to change seem to be baked into some quarters of the industry.

This brings us, rather neatly, back to the topic of succession. The role of a particular generation which was dubbed variously as the “New Wave” or “Young Guns” is well-documented. The likes of Adi Badenhorst, Marc Kent and Eben Sadie were instrumental in revitalising the industry, but this cohort is now emphatically middle-aged.

Will we see their like again? To some extent, it seems unlikely that the wine industry will ever be as fluid, infused with optimism, and full of opportunity as it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the New Wave first came to prominence. However, I believe it is beholden on the industry to take responsibility for its future by deliberately providing space for emerging talent. These new entrants bring progressive ideas and a renewed sense of ambition. Incumbents, in turn, are compelled to raise their game. It might be argued that this process happens naturally, but the industry seems too fraught with challenges to take such a hand-off approach. The FedEx Next Generation Awards is an effort to find tomorrow’s heroes today.