Christian Eedes: September 2008

As South Africa goes, by far the most wine gets sold in Gauteng, yet WINE magazine readers are drawn largely from the Western Cape. By Christian EedesAt a tasting held recently to preview some of the wines to be sold at this year’s Nederburg Auction, the presenter was Chris de Klerk, wine ambassador for Distell – owner of the Nederburg brand and South Africa’s largest producer-wholesaler of wine.

De Klerk advised that he is based in Gauteng on account of how strategically important the province is to his employers: he volunteered that 70% of the sales of high-price wine (defined as “wine with a cork in it”) occur there while “Gauteng South” accounts for 25% of Distell’s annual global turnover of R8.1 billion in wine, spirits and other alcoholic beverages.

This is in stark contrast to the scenario that faces WINE magazine. Data to hand indicates that around 50% of our readers live in the greater Cape Town area, with only 30% in Gauteng. The question has to be asked: why are we not performing better in South Africa’s most important regional market for wine?

Getting some black faces on board would help. Observe the Naomi Campbell look-alikes tottering out of Katzy’s in Rosebank, Johannesburg, late on a midweek night and it doesn’t require too many leaps of logic to work out why the Gauteng liquor market is so buoyant. Cape Town, on the other hand, lacks the same degree of affluence or integration. All applications from previously disadvantaged food-and-wine journos to the editor, please...

The accusation is also occasionally made that WINE is too parochial, too preoccupied with the goings-on of Cape Town and the winelands. No doubt we could do with more of a presence in Gauteng but I don’t think we are doing too badly: regular contributors like Michael Fridjhon, Neil Pendock and Anna Trapido are all Gauteng-based; the annual Michael Fridjhon WINE Experience has always been held at Johannesburg’s Hyatt Regency; every WINE tasting open to the public in Cape Town is matched by one in Johannesburg.

The overly pale profile of WINE magazine’s contributors or a geographically limited outlook only go so far to explain why we do not enjoy greater sales in Gauteng. I suspect what ultimately is at stake is a difference in mindset between the inhabitants of Cape Town and Johannesburg: while the Mother City has a pool of more knowledgeable wine lovers, there is a quickly growing number of new wine drinkers in Jozi who enjoy the beverage but still have an as yet relatively low involvement with the subject. (It is interesting to note that when WINE magazine showcased top Pinotage in July, the Cape Town event attracted twice as big an audience as Jo’burg…)
Wine is part of an aspirational lifestyle, and, with Johannesburg the business capital of South Africa, it’s no wonder sales are booming in this city. But I also suspect that wine here is about conspicuous consumption and instant gratification, versus a more contemplative activity in the Cape. It’s not just a matter of economics. You only have to compare a crowd attending a rugby match at Ellis Park to one at Newlands to realise that the two regional centres don’t share the same attitudes.

Now, before I’m inundated with correspondence from Gautengers accusing me of thinking myself culturally superior, I’m the first to concede that the only way that WINE magazine is going to prosper is by engaging with the emerging market. Communicating about wine must become less elitist: the trick is to make what is necessarily a specialist title accessible enough to attract the beginner but not so simplistic as to alienate the expert. Believe me, we’re working on it…