Michael Fridjhon: Does anybody still care about provenance?

Just over fifty years ago the Department of Agriculture established South Africa’s wine of origin scheme. At the time our legislation was the most advanced of any of the New World wine producing nations. Based on the European notion that appellation – or terroir – can be reflected in agricultural produce (wine, cheese and meat) it drove a process by which the place where grapes were grown could be traced via wider regions (Stellenbosch or Paarl, for example) to the smallest units of production (single estates and now single sites).

The infrastructure required to certify the authenticity of these claims continues to exist today. Given how much of the country’s bureaucratic capability has been eroded over the past thirty years, this is nothing short of remarkable. It’s certainly a tribute to the dedication of those who operate it.

Yet here’s the really weird thing: despite the rigour of the legislation and the investment (made by the industry and not by government) in retaining it, it’s not clear how much consumers (and for that matter, producers) even care about it. In the past few weeks the Vignerons of Franschhoek conducted its annual roadshow, sharing examples of wines from some of its members’ cellars. At last year’s event the organisation was criticised for showing wines made from grapes harvested from any number of Western Cape appellations. This year it showed only Franschhoek origin wines – but failed to address the question of what the terroir of the place contributes to the style of the wine. This may be because the Vignerons de Franschhoek is really a tourism organisation. But when you talk about wine and about origin, you cannot escape the essential connection between place and product.

Of course, the problem may be that it’s difficult to find any discernible feature that distinguishes chardonnay or shiraz from Franschhoek from the same varieties harvested elsewhere in the so-called Coastal Region. Franschhoek is a smart address. It’s so smart that even those who do not live or grow fruit there like to lay claim to it. For example, Babylonstoren is in Simonsberg-Paarl. Its owner like to pretends it’s in Franschhoek: the website states “Babylonstoren is … set at the foot of the Simonsberg in the Franschhoek wine valley.” That’s like calling Sea Point “Bantry border” or Orange Grove “Houghton extension.”

A smart neighbourhood is irrelevant in the context of any wine of origin scheme: it’s not about the address – it’s about what the address delivers in terms of the quality and taste of what is grown there. If you farm in the Hautes Côte de Nuits you can’t just put “Romanée-Conti border” on your website. There is absolutely no similarity between the wines from Romanée-Conti and anything produced a few kilometres away (as the crow flies) on the western side of the Côte.

At the time of the launch of the wine of origin scheme in 1973, over twenty properties were registered as estates. Within a few years these numbers had trebled. Today very few remain. No one cares enough about where the fruit was grown. Rupert & Rothschild is a member of the Vignerons de Franschhoek. Its cellar is in Paarl (“Franschhoek border”). It draws on fruit harvested from so many different vineyards that its best selling Classique can only state “Wine of Western Cape” on its label. You don’t need a wine of origin scheme or the effort which goes into managing its integrity if one of our most successful premium reds can dispense entirely with any claim to real terroir.

Part of the reason for the decline in the number of Cape estate wines is that clearly no one seems to attach any importance to origin. This is partly a failure of education, partly the result of the post-1994 export boom, partly because giving up on this is the course of least resistance. Why write a sonnet in fourteen lines of rhyming poetry if no one appreciates what goes into crafting it and anyway you can get away with blank verse?

But there are consequences to this cul-de-sac into which the industry has so easily driven itself. As long as you don’t have anything more precise to sell than “Wine of Western Cape” you cannot easily lay claim to premium pricing. (This is a safe general rule despite the obvious exceptions: you can safely ignore the fact that Penfold’s Grange is a multi-regional blend: it was THE deluxe wine brand in Australia long before origin acquired any relevance in Australia). So as long as we are happy to sell THE CAPE rather than Stellenbosch or Paarl our average export prices will hover fractionally above the international selling point of bulk wine: that’s because what we are really selling is just that.

Ask yourself what Sadie Family Wines, Vin de Constance, Kanonkop, Hamilton Russell, Alheit, Meerlust and Paul Cluver (to name a few of the usual suspects) have in common: all trade in the uppermost segments of the pricing pyramid and all are invested in origin. You can’t make cream from skim milk. You cannot build an enviable reputation if you’re willing to taint your integrity with a little skelm sleight of hand the moment it’s more convenient. South Africa’s fine wine producers are all standing at this crossroad: with appellation, as with procreation, you cannot be a little pregnant.

• Michael Fridjhon has over thirty-five years’ experience in the liquor industry. He is the founder of Winewizard.co.za and holds various positions including Visiting Professor of Wine Business at the University of Cape Town; founder and director of WineX – the largest consumer wine show in the Southern Hemisphere and chairman of The Trophy Wine Show.