Down to Earth: Tim James CWM
Only one country prohibits any mention of vineyard origins on its wine labels: South Africa. Tim James CWM argues that it is time to celebrate and to recognise site-specific wines.Some thousand years ago in Burgundy emerged a central motif of our enduring fascination with wine: the observation that a particular vineyard would, year after year, despite the vagaries of weather, offer wine with a recognisable identity of character and quality. The meticulous monks of Citeux over the years painstakingly parcelled out the climats of the Côte d'Or - concerned not only with quality, but also the pleasures of difference.
This notion of terroir (the coming together of climate, soil and landscape in wine) took something of a bashing in the past half-century, with increased understanding and control of the winemaking process, and the bright achievements of a New World untrammelled by the traditions of the Old: attention shifted to the cellar, and the winemaker rather than the land became the hero. Varietal character, not the prime consideration before, became more important than the expression of soil and vintage.
With an achieved mastery (well, almost) over process, and a world awash with well-made wine, the focus seems now to be returning to terroir, as the most ambitious winemakers and the keenest wine-drinkers seek a deeper, less anonymous interest. To hear that 'great wine is made in the vineyard' has became a cliché; and the question frequently following on this truth is - 'which vineyard?'
While the terroir-ists of Europe are having to compete with the varietalism claiming the lower and middle parts of the market, it is now the New World that is scrambling to declare the precise origins of its best wines. The age of the single-vineyard wine has dawned. Australians and Californians who dismissed the claims of terroir as mumbo-jumbo and a dodgy European marketing trick are seeking to establish 'regionality' in general, and more precise characteristics in particular. The doyen of Australian wine, Len Evans, recently remarked for example that "we have to move on. We have to educate overseas consumers that we have regions of great difference, capable of producing different wines in terms of style and flavour. Vineyard wines will become very important to Australia - and the rest of the world."
South Africa, too, will have to "move on"- and is doing so. It has major advantages and disadvantages on its side. Land specification, as expressed in the Wine of Origin system, is in some ways already more developed than in any other non-European country - although others, particularly California, are catching up fast. Through the concept of the 'estate', small units of terroir have been built into the WO system from its foundations in the early 1970s.
Paradoxically, however, it is precisely the estate concept which is now inhibiting the development and impact of single-vineyard Cape wines. For various reasons the estate has become a sadly irrelevant category (who is sure which winery is an 'estate' and what it means?) - irrelevant, that is, except in one vital aspect: to protect the estate as the smallest geographical expression of the system (although some are enormous), no producer is allowed to make any suggestion on a wine-label that the wine comes from any particular vineyard.
Of course, this has not kept our more ambitious wineries from producing single-vineyard wines - although they may not mention the fact on the label. Quite apart from wines from some smaller estates, which are in effect from one block of vines, the past decade has seen the emergence of a number of single-vineyard wines. Some of the better-known examples are Stellenzicht Syrah, Vergelegen Schaapenberg Sauvignon Blanc Reserve, Boekenhoutskloof Syrah, KWV's Abraham Perold 'Op die berg' Shiraz, the top crus of Neil Ellis, Rustenberg Peter Barlow and Uiterwyk 'Top of the Hill' Pinotage - and there are numerous others.
Charles Back of Fairview (no slouch when it comes to spotting market trends, nor in promoting quality) has spoken of his quest for carefully selected vineyard blocks, to make wines which "reflect the terrior where they are grown, giving them individuality and personality. This is the future for the really top quality wines in this country." It is immensely frustrating for the Fairview team (and many others feel the same) that they cannot encourage owners of particularly good vineyards by referring to the origins of site-specific wines.
On a wider scale than the frustrations of individual owners and negociants, the Chenin Blanc Producers Association also finds the current situation troubling. It is assiduously searching out those sites (among the sea of very ordinary Chenin vines) capable of offering excellence. This focus on origins was expressed, for example, in WINE's Chenin Challenge, where entrants had to indicate the vineyard origins of their wines. To raise Chenin's profile as a quality wine, and encourage producers not to grub up their best old vines in favour of more fashionable varieties, the Association would like to have a register of the best sites - and to be able to reflect this on the bottle. First, the law would have to change.
Quite apart from being put at an international marketing disadvantage, there are, then, real problems for top-end wine production in the current situation. The price being paid is not being compensated by the protected estates. As I have discussed elsewhere, few people here or abroad have any understanding of the 'estate' category - and fewer think it significant.
There is little doubt, especially given the lack of value evident in the estate system, that legislation will sometime have to be adapted to reflect the real importance of site-specific wines. Entrenched interests and conservatism are likely, unfortunately, to retard the process. But, ideally, what should be done? To achieve the utmost, it cannot be a simple matter of abandoning the prohibition on vineyard references: we all know the uselessness of most back-label verbiage. If we are to promote site-specific wines, and interest the world in them, something more solid is needed.
The answer must lie in voluntary submission to regulation. If a producer wishes to offer a wine which claims to be from a specific site, there is every reason that the site should be registered, and its production monitored in much the same way that estate production is now controlled. To add further value, and to ensure that this becomes a truly significant claim on a South African wine label, a set of preconditions should be made. For there will inevitably be those whose aim would simply be to claim the status that would accrue to small-terroir demarcations, without any corresponding devotion to quality and character.
Conditions should be made deliberately difficult, to prevent the opportunist registration of vineyards, and to ensure that only those seriously interested in producing a wine of the highest quality would avail themselves of the opportunity.
To produce regulations that would conduce to quality, deter opportunism and fraud, and remain useful over time would be difficult. (Most basically, for example, what is a 'vineyard'? Would a 100-hectare block of mechanically harvested high-cropping Chenin qualify?) It is a challenge that could and should be met.
The situation now is that an increasing number of producers are offering wines purporting to come from single vineyards, and market them as such, even if this must be done under the guise of registered trade marks, and with no real clues on the labels. This defiance of the spirit, if not the letter, of the law is an inevitable and, it must be said, legitimate consequence of the situation, and does nothing to enhance the reputation of the Wine of Origin Scheme. It is also wide open to damaging fraud, given that there is no prevention of misrepresentation if it is claimed that a wine under a particular trademark originates from a single vineyard.
On and in the ground, things are changing. In an admittedly small way, the search is already on to find the Cape's best matches of grape and terroir. But legislation is lagging behind - frustrating rather than encouraging this important process.
A properly considered system for registering and controlling specific sites and their products would be a signal from the industry of its seriousness and of the integrity and comprehensiveness of its Wine of Origin system. If this means a recasting or even abandonment of the estate system, so be it. To be able to proudly offer the world a reliable authentication of single-vineyard status would be to renounce a uniqueness that only restricts, in favour of a uniqueness (among New World countries) that would encourage the reflection of terroir in wine on a far wider basis than the current estate system does, and simultaneously offer a useful marketing tool to the producers of some of the finest Cape wines.
The interest in high-priced terroir-based wines will probably always be limited, but we should take seriously the judgement of, for example, Jean-Michel Valette, who runs the prestigious Franciscan Estates of California's Napa Valley: "Right now", he suggests, "most consumers don't really care what vineyard the grapes came from. Our bet is that in ten years' time, they are going to care a lot." In ten years, will we still be the only country in the world not allowed to tell consumers where our best wines are grown?
* This article is largely based on a dissertation submitted for the Cape Wine Master diploma: 'Terroir and law: Estates and single vineyards in South Africa's Wine of Origin Scheme'. Electronic copies of the full text are available from the author; email: tim@energetic.uct.ac.za.
