Michael Fridjhon: March 2007

When it comes to the Lotto, you can't win it if you aren't in it… and therein lies a message for south africa's wine producers. At a time when the number of wineries - and the number of quality wines - i n the Cape has been increasing, it may seem churlish to suggest that most of this enterprise may be wasted and much of it likely to be short-lived.

A glimpse back over the past decade yields a measure of the achievement of the country's wine producers. In the post-1994 era we were massively over-planted in white varieties and almost all our premium vineyards were virus-infected. South Africa was a rank outsider on the table of wine suppliers to the major European import markets.

Since then, we've corrected (in fact over-corrected) the planting imbalance. We have generally healthy vineyards, a new generation of astute and market-driven winemakers. We feature prominently on the radar screens of buyers in many of our export markets. We even had a brief and all too transient flirtation with the position of number four supplier to the UK.

Despite this, the industry is in at least as parlous a position as it was in 1989, with hundreds of grape growers facing insolvency, many mid-size cellars battling to make ends meet and several of the bigger players desperately seeking a white knight to rescue them.

Is it that there isn't - and never has been - a future in the wine industry? Did we only survive the 1970s and 1980s because the KWV acted as a buyer of last resort? Does this mean that all the enterprise of producers, the efforts of viticulturists, the enthusiasm of skilled new winemakers, the marketing efforts of WOSA (Wines of South Africa) are of little worth?

In many ways this is a crucial question for all those who are passionate about good wine - not only good wine in South Africa, but everywhere in this increasingly globalised world. If there is no good reason to invest in the industry in South Africa, there is unlikely to be one for Australia, Chile, Argentina and France - outside the grand appellations.

With around 80% of all wine sales in the UK going through the supermarkets and the multiples, point of sale has assumed control of the market and is eroding margin and decimating consumer choice. If this continues, everyone who does not make wine to this recipe will be squeezed out of the industry, leaving only the practitioners of the art of supermarket wine to inherit the vinous landscape. And this in turn means that artisanal winemaking - together with the pursuit of the expression of place - will join all the other crafts which have been overwhelmed by the logic of a post-Industrial Revolution era.

Railing against the process will not change it - and in fact it is not certain that much, if anything, can be done to arrest it. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it is not only consumers who will bear liability for choosing the easy way out - the low-priced (but not low-cost) easy-drinking, so-called consumer-friendly wines.

I was told the other day by the proprietor of an important provincial hotel group that he had visited many stands at WineX in Johannesburg, liberally distributing his business card and requesting post-show contact prior to rewriting his winelist.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise to WINE's readers that he never received a single phone call. Their fantasy of the pro-active producer may have taken a pounding over the years.

In that case I might be the only one left who still thinks if you want to win the Lotto, you have to buy a ticket.