Storm in a flute glass

When Paarl producer Avondale recently invited media to the Cape Town "launch of South
Africa's first organically produce [sic] Méthode Cap Classique" at Sevruga, V&A Waterfront, it got Bon Cap Organic into a tizz because the latter, an officially certified organic winery based in Robertson, insists its MCC 2005 was the first Cape organic bubbly actually on sale in the country.

Avondale claims to have produced the first organic MCC in 2003 but says it didn’t have the quantities to release the wine commercially back then. Bon Cap MD Michelle du Preez likens this to “building a prototype vehicle for display at an international motor show”. And while Avondale is now organically certified, Bon Cap is questioning the former’s claims to have produced organically certified wines in 2003 and 2004 under the appropriate international bodies.

Avondale marketing manager Krige Visser, in a telephone interview with WINE magazine, revealed that Netherlands organic body Control Union only officially granted organic status to the farm in 2005. But he insists it’s an issue of semantics. “Avondale Brut NV, made from organically grown Bio-LOGIC Chardonnay grapes, was listed and rated in Platter’s 2008. This is the first public record of the wine, hence our claim.”