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The South African hospitality industry displays a serious weakness when it comes to skilled wine service. Why? Jeanri-Tine van Zyl investigates.
Wine service levels in South Africa range from the laughable to the laudable, the former being the norm. I am reminded of an incident where a bottle of Fleur de Cap Sauvignon Blanc was requested from a waiter who returned with a Fleur de Cap Chenin Blanc instead. “It is the exact same thing,” he tried to convince the complaining diners – who rightfully got up and left the establishment.
Another incident related to me by an experienced restaurant reviewer involved a laughable retort from a restaurant owner, who, when told that the wine he had poured was corked, tasted the wine himself and then said, “ There’s nothing wrong with this wine – I like a bit of vaatjie (barrel) in my wine."
We have a wine industry that is some 350 years old and in recent times is starting to make undeniably world-class wines. We also have a domestic population increasingly inclined to embrace the culture of eating out, not to mention some seven million tourists per year keen to get stuck into local produce. It is therefore a missed opportunity, to say the least, that wine service is generally so dismal.
The dining experience varies by region and it seems that Cape Town, generally considered South Africa’s culinary capital, provides wine enthusiasts with the most competent wine service. Johannesburg, on the other hand, gets praise for “efficient waitering service overall rather than good wine service,” according to Jean-Pierre Rossouw, author of annual restaurant guide Rossouw’s Restaurants.
Basic knowledge should be a central requirement for employment, but locally too many restaurants simply do not view properly trained wine waiters as a valued commodity – at least not at your average, everyday establishments. Pay a bit more and the situation, thankfully, improves.
“We need to be careful what criteria we use to measure wine service. It’s relative to the overall dining experience on offer, which necessarily affects the expectations of the consumer,” says André Morgenthal, communications manager of Wines of South Africa (WOSA). “How do you compare Vasco da Gama Tavern in Cape Town, where the wine service is colourful and entertaining yet possibly misinformed and not necessarily helping you to make the right purchase decision, with what you experience at deluxe restaurants such as Rust en Vrede, La Colombe or the One&Only?”
The Struggle Continues
The obvious needs to be stated: the lack of a wine culture in South Africa is greatly dictated by socio-economic circumstances affecting the majority of the local population.
This poses a problem when it comes to sourcing staff to provide a service calling not only for passing knowledge, but real interest in the subject of wine. “Most people entering service have not ever drunk wine, typically have a poor educational background, have English as a second or third language and find the French names for varietals hard to remember. So all of this adds to the challenge,” says Morgenthal.
“Wine can be a very intimidating subject for people who have not been brought up with the beverage,” adds Marilyn Cooper, managing director at the Cape Wine Academy (CWA), “but with skilled trainers the knowledge can be acquired.”
Cooper refers to Mike Buthelezi, the “second black sommelier” to complete the CWA’s Cape Sommelier Course since its inception in 2009. “He did not drink wine two years ago, but he’s has taken to wine like a duck to water. His knowledge and service are excellent, and his thirst for knowledge has grown.”
Buthelezi is currently employed at the highly rated Roots Restaurant at Forum Homini in e Cradle of Humankind, where he continues to evolve as wine steward, and there are numerous others like him. Solomon Ross, head wine steward at the fine-dining restaurant operated by Asara hotel in Stellenbosch, did not grow up in a wine-drinking home, yet today he is a skilled wine steward and enthralled by the subject matter. He has now been in the hospitality industry for 16 years, the last five spent in wine service at the renowned Grande Roche hotel in Paarl.
From scullery hand to barman, waiter, room services supervisor to “sommelier” and finally “head sommelier”, Ross is testament to the importance of involving employees over a long period of time to enable them to graduate from a zero-knowledge base to becoming a specialist.
Continuous support is of utmost importance if establishments are serious about establishing and maintaining a pool of wine-savvy staff. And support not only in terms of training but capital, too – as the low payment of trained sommeliers causes vacancies in what should be a position restaurant owners are willing to invest in. Wine waiters are often the initial person diners have contact with at a restaurant and we all know the importance of first impressions. From the consumer’s point of view, an inspired recommendation when it comes to pairing a wine with a dish can elevate the dining experience from good to great. From the restaurant’s point of view, a skilled and persuasive wine steward can get the diner to trade up. It is simply amazing that wine service is not more valued.
Roland Peens, ex-sommelier now involved in wine retail, brokerage and storage at Wine Cellar in Cape Town, supports this. “Top sommeliers in this country get paid perhaps R15 000 to R20 000 a month, where the head chef would earn double that. Proprietors just don’t value wine stewards as important enough.”
Rossouw, one of the leading authorities on South African restaurants, agrees that more emphasis should be placed on the significance of wine waiters: “If you look at your typical bill at a restaurant, it usually comes to R100 or R150 per head. The chances are that the per rand spend on a bottle of wine will be proportionally much higher than that of the food. Wine,” he adds, “is often the first offering at a restaurant – the welcoming – and to neglect this is to neglect a fundamental part of service.”
To address the lack of wine service training, WOSA launched Project Laduma, an initiative that aimed to train 2 010 wine waiters by this year. A wine brand called Fundi was released to the market, the proceeds of which would go towards sponsoring “more than 2 000 previously disadvantaged people as wine stewards by 2010, when South Africa [hosts] the FIFA World Cup”.
In order to achieve this goal, and to do justice by the word Fundi (derived from the isiZulu word umfundi, meaning learner), it was envisaged that R4.5 million needed to be raised to meet target. At the end of last year the project had managed to raise roughly R1.8 million over the two years, and under 1 000 students had been trained via Cape Town-based hospitality training body Let’s Sell Lobster.
Morgenthal articulates some frustrations: “A big area of difficulty has been some proprietors not willing to allow the waiters to attend the wine steward course. We do understand wait staff need to work the hours, but surely there can be some form of compromise in order to enhance general service? One would think that training would always be priority for management but in reality operations take preference.”
This seems to be true across the board, with enrolment at the CWA’s Cape Sommelier course, introduced last year, also somewhat bleak: “We have four qualified Cape Sommeliers, two white women and two black men,” says Cooper. “At present there are only a further three enrolled, which is disappointing.”
South Africa can name but few bona fide sommeliers. “Five, maybe 10,” reckons Rossouw, while Cooper comments that “many people call themselves sommeliers in this country who have little or no knowledge of international wines, which defi nitely impacts on tourists”. For the rest we have a couple of well-trained wine stewards and a majority of waiters with varying degrees of wine knowledge.
“South Africa in its entirety has a tremendously long road to travel in terms of wine service,” is the blunt observation of Dale den Dulk, co-founder of Let’s Sell Lobster.
Ready for Kick-Off
All rather disconcerting, especially with the 2010 FIFA World Cup around the corner. International visitors over the month that the tournament runs are estimated to reach three million. With official kick-off only four months away, there are growing concerns that establishments will be under-resourced to cater for large crowds.
Last year e Sunday Times proclaimed that a shortage of chefs, 2 000 to be exact, will result in insufficient gourmet food being served to international palates in 2010.
If this is the case regarding our kitchens, then the situation when it comes to wine service can only be worse. You don’t have to be a master mathematician to see an imbalance in the supply versus demand equation, even if 2 010 Fundi students manage to pass the five-day training program provided by Let’s Sell Lobster. According to Morgenthal the current success rate is approximately 70%. That means with 1 000 students having undergone the course, only 700 students had, at the time of going to press, reached a satisfactory level of wine knowledge enable them to be not only wine waiters, but “wine ambassadors”. Some 700 wine waiters to cater for the needs of three million visitors seems woefully inadequate, and there are almost no other initiatives to gear up for hosting one of the world’s greatest sporting events.
Den Dulk does not find this overly worrying. “The majority of people who have attended the course are focusing on hospitality as a career path.” With the training concept being unique and easy to grasp, the Fundi initiative aims to leave a lasting basic understanding of wines – one that wasn’t there before. Says Morgenthal: “We can just try our best and that’s why we’ve taken the initiative to increase service excellence, not only to improve the quality of the visitor experience, but also to offer individuals an opportunity to develop their own potential and set them on a career path.”
But are we ready to serve the masses? “Can one ever be ready?” asks Morgenthal, the implication unfortunately being that South Africa is not.
Definition of a sommelier
The Oxford Companion to Wine defines the word sommelier as “[a] widely used French term for a specialist wine waiter or wine steward”. Sommeliers should accordingly be experts in their fields and be able to serve in a wine advisory capacity to both diner and chef. Germain Lehodey, who holds an international sommelier qualification, has extensive knowledge of wine service expectations locally and abroad. In his view, we have become too lenient about giving someone the title of sommelier. “You need some or other form of international experience,” he insists, “and a good understanding of food, wine, culture and people.” A good sommelier needs years of experience, backed up by academic knowledge; locally there are perhaps 10 bona fide sommeliers – the majority should be viewed as wine stewards.
No proper red wine glasses.
Need I say more? "