Lower alcohol and prices; better quality and choice

In the eye of the storm the illusion of calm appears to create the kind of environment which encourages significantly higher wine consumption.

Certainly, purchases in the period between the beginning of November and Christmas represent 30%–40% of the retail trade’s annual turnover. If we are honest, we might admit to a comparable level of indulgence, though this is crammed into a shorter period of time, that languid season when the nation conspires to shut down.

Of course, this in turn is followed by regret, remorse and resolution: to drink (and eat) less – but better, to be more selective, less cavalier, in feeding the appetites of the flesh. The spiritual message of the festive season may have been lost in what British theologian Don Cupitt called its “Disneyfication” but the aftermath usually produces a suitably sober reappraisal of things.

Drinking – rather than merely sampling – wine is an altogether different experience. Professional tasters acknowledge this, though they rightly argue that if they swallowed even a mouthful of every bottle they set out to assess, the negative impact on their judgment would swiftly outweigh whatever benefits might arise from this more thorough kind of appraisal. It follows that the consumption patterns of the year- end offer all of us who indulge in an uncustomarily enthusiastic manner over the period an alternative freeze-frame.

My impressions begin with the sense that alcohol levels have peaked, and are now gradually dropping. Drinkability, freshness in the mouth and food-friendliness have now gained the upper hand in the protracted wrist-wrestle between showy ripe flavours and the actual consumability of what is in the bottle.

Interestingly, some of these gains have been achieved without compromising complexity.

Sauvignon Blanc produces a ready example. Five years ago the so-called more classically styled wines were actually underripe, palpably green, their apparent crisp flintiness the green pepper notes of fruit picked well before optimum harvest date.

Today, through thoughtful viticultural practices and (with the more premium wines) better site selection, Loire-like flavours are achieved at alcohol levels that are at least a full percentage point less than seemed possible in 2004.

Among the other changes that have assumed a level of obviousness are the charms of the Cape’s commercial wines (both white and red); their downward price spiral (relative to quality); and the extraordinary value offered by our Champagne-method bubblies.

There is less junk about than ever before. For people willing to spend (at supermarkets and multiples) R30-R40 on white wines and R40-R55 for reds, the choice is frankly spectacular.

Big commercial operations, their skills honed by the demands of the export market, now offer the drinking value that used to be absent when they relied solely on the power of their distribution machine to beat the no-name brands to market.

Douglas Green, Bellingham, Nederburg, Fleur du Cap have been winning awards for some time with their more premium wines, but now their bottom-of- the-range offerings have also been significantly upgraded.

This in turn has forced the producers who depended on measurable quality differences to survive against these juggernauts to operate even more cleverly, selecting their parcels for the domestic market with a greater sense of nuance.

The supermarkets whose own labels were often casually assembled on the basis that route to market meant more than quality in the bottle have also had to revise their thinking. House brands appear to reflect improvements in fruit and bulk-wine selection, rather than mere tinkerings with acid, sugar and label design.

Much of this is happening at lower price points, relative to the purchasing power of the rand, than seemed imaginable a few years ago. Despite marked CPIX inflation over the past year, there now appears to be more good wine in these quite traditional price brackets than there was when they were more meaningful measures of discretionary buying power.

True, given the cutback in consumer spending it could be argued that vendors have merely deflated price ahead of the curve. But that they have been able to do this with the export market still relatively strong, argues trenchantly for a marked increase in the availability of quality bulk wine to meet the demands of all these markets.

Finally (given that the end of the year is traditionally the season of fizz) the indisputable value of our bottle-fermented bubblies deserves special mention.

Revellers on New Year’s Eve enjoyed a choice of handcrafted sparkling wines for little more than the price of an everyday red or white. Relative to the premium fizz enjoyed in most sophisticated western markets, this suggests the category trades at a real discount and wine drinkers ought to take advantage of the arbitrage.