Vine smuggling

Ja, well, no, vine

So poor was the selection of grape varieties available in South Africa at one point that quality-minded winemakers were forced to resort to smuggling. Today the structures are in place, yet a country which prides itself on diversity still faces a plant material crisis. By Joanne Gibson.

 

It was the phonecall he'd been waiting for. His "box of chocolates" had arrived from his buddy, Jan "Boland" Coetzee, in France. Winemaker Danie de Wet didn't hesitate, speeding from the family farm De Wetshof in Robertson to collect it from the Wynboer magazine offices in Paarl. It was 1981 and then-editor Maureen Joubert's husband, Fritz, had smuggled it in on a South African Airways flight from Paris...

Needless to say, it wasn't chocolates at all but a few cuttings of Chardonnay from Beaune, Burgundy, where Coetzee - then winemaker at Kanonkop - was working the harvest. For Chardonnay may have been booming elsewhere in the world, but it was not welcome in a country where one omnipotent cooperative, the KWV, dictated which grape varieties could - and could not - be grown in an industry geared towards bulk production, mostly for brandy distillation.

Going overseas to study or work in the late '70s and early '80s must have been a mind-blowing experience for young South African winemakers like De Wet and Coetzee. Raised on a bland viticultural diet of mostly Colombard, Cape Riesling (Crouchen Blanc) and Steen (Chenin Blanc), the opportunity to taste great, handcrafted wines from noble grape varieties grown in centuries-old vineyards must have been thrilling - and equally depressing, given the restrictive conditions in which they would soon be working back home.

De Wet, who studied at the Geisenheim Research Institute in Germany, credits his professor on clonal selection, Helmut Becker, for teaching him about the importance of plant material.

"When I got back to South Africa, I told everyone that if we were serious about the future of the industry, we had to start planting the right varieties and the right clones for specific soil conditions. At that stage, people were investing a lot of money on technology such as cold fermentation. But I said it was more important to spend on viticulture, because how can you build a house without the right building blocks?

Many others felt the same way - contemporaries De Wet as well as some of the industry's most respected elders. "But in those days it was impossible to bring in new plant material. First you had to motivate the Department of Agriculture to import it. If they agreed, it would be in quarantine for a couple of years to ensure it was free of virus.

Then it would go off to [research farm] Nietvoorbij, where it would be propagated into vineyards. Eventually small-volume wines would be made, and finally a panel would evaluate whether there was a need for the wine in SA.

"By the time you'd been given the green light, planted your own vines and made some wine, the whole process would have taken close to 20 years! For me, taking that long to start making some decent white wine, never mind red wine, was unthinkable. Luckily I had access to some of the best people in Europe at that time, so I asked them to assist us in getting in some of the best possible plant material of certain varieties."

THE VINE SMUGGLING ERA

Stories abound of stokkies being hidden in nappies, underwear, laundry, suitcases, or even flown in aboard private planes. "There were about 10 of us," says De Wet. "And nobody was doing it for self-enrichment; it was simply because we couldn't carry on building the industry with the plant material we had.

Can you imagine if the embargo on South African wine had been lifted in the early '90s and we'd had nothing to offer but Steen and Cape Riesling? We already had our pants around our knees because the world had swung over to red."

Inevitably things didn't go quite according to plan. "One of the producers of note importing clonal material was Boschendal, and they'd given me some of the Chardonnay to propagate for all of us. We knew it came from Colmar so referred to it as the Colmar clone. But in 1985 it was identified as Auxerrois."

A Commission of Enquiry was set up to investigate two things: "Firstly that we were bringing the stuff in illegally and secondly that we weren't bringing in what we thought we were!"

Those called in to testify, including De Wet and Coetzee as well as industry leaders Günther Brözel and Sydney Back, got off lightly. "The presiding judge, Chris Klopper, had spent his whole life being irritated by red tape. He said that although we'd acted illegally, we were quite right that the development of the wine industry should not be held up."

A direct outcome was the establishment of the Vine Improvement Association (VIA) in 1986. "Since then, if you want material, you simply apply to the VIA, which arranges to bring it in at its own expense. It is received by Plant and Quality Control, which can check within 10 days whether there are any disease problems.

Then you can plant it immediately, on a dedicated area approved by the VIA, as long as you leave a two-metre band around the new vineyard and give full access to inspectors. Within three years, all the tests have been done, and assuming there are no problems, the fruit can immediately go into your production line."

A Chardonnay specialist ever since, not to mention eventually becoming chairman of the KWV whose very rules he'd once broken, De Wet hasn't looked back - and the viticultural landscape has also changed beyond recognition. Where noble grape varieties accounted for only 13.8% of all plantings in 1991, South Africa is now well up to speed with other New World countries as far as the popular grape varieties (like Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc) are concerned.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Glancing through the grapevine statistics provided by SAWIS (SA Wine Industry Information and Systems) reveals that Chenin Blanc is still the most widely planted variety (18.6% of total plantings at the end of 2008), followed by Cabernet Sauvignon (12.5%), Colombard (11.7%), Shiraz (9.8%), Sauvignon Blanc (9%), Chardonnay (8.2%) and Merlot (6.5%). In fact, producers are spoilt for choice as far as different clones of the above varieties are concerned (33 for Chardonnay alone, according to the South African Wine Directory 2009/2010).

The question is: are these French grapes the best option for SA? We may have pockets where conditions are similar to those in Bordeaux; the Rhône; even Burgundy - but generally we have far more in common with the Mediterranean. So where are the Petit Manseng and Terret Noir of the south of France; the Fiano and Aglianico of Italy; the Assyrtiko and Xynomavro of Greece? To name just a few of the thousands of distinct varieties of vitis vinifera...

"We still have a plant material crisis in our country," says Eben Sadie of Sadie Family Vineyards, whose iconic white Palladius and red Columella make a strong case for his belief that interesting blends have the most potential for greatness in warm climates.

"We urgently need to get more varieties from warmer regions in Europe; drought-resistant grapes that aren't a drain on our water and other natural resources; grapes that don't have to be kept alive artificially. We have enough cool-climate Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir options, suitable for Elgin, Hermanus, Elim, but only one clone of Grenache (the most planted grape in the world) and it is not even perfectly clean! There is much work to be done."

Since the establishment of the VIA, the structures are in place. "Producers can import any cultivar they want," says Charles Visser, chief viticulturist at Vititec in Paarl, which supplies grafted vines to producers, as well as scion and rootstock material to nurseries. "We proceed with importation as soon as the VIA gives permission - and they haven't turned us down for anything yet!"

VIA secretary Nico van der Merwe stresses that the process is straightforward as far as varieties already on the industry's Official Varietal List and List for Winemaking Purposes are concerned. In cases where a new variety is being imported, additional factors need to be taken into consideration: country/region of origin, whether the plant material comes from an authorised depository or plant improvement organisation, and of course its viral and other disease status.

Sometimes additional tests and/or special quarantine measures are required: "Each import is handled by the Department of Agriculture on its own merits and the time-lags from import application until release will diff er in each case." "But the authorities certainly aren't lacking in enthusiasm or interest," says Rosa Kruger, viticulturist at L'Ormarins Private Cellar in Franschhoek.

"If you want something, you just go to a nursery, ask for it, and they apply to bring it in. In theory, we can plant what we want, where we want. The problem is with the producers." Visser believes people are nervous about being the first: "They all wait for someone else to import something and then point fi ngers when it isn't yet available."

Sadie for one is constantly fine-tuning his Palladius white blend with "new" varieties including Grenache Blanc, Clairette Blanc, Verdelho, Roussanne... But he observes that nobody can achieve widespread change in an individual capacity: "The entire industry needs to be more proactive. The structures are in place but the philosophy still needs to follow suit."

He argues that it's no longer about providing more of whatever's fashionable in a globalised world - the kind of thinking that led one marketer, not so long ago, to tell South African growers that trendy Pinot Grigio was the only "alternative" grape variety worth considering!

"We need to start fi nding a real identity of our own," says Sadie. "We can't keep living another man's story. And if we have to try 150 varieties before we end up with just a couple that are perfect for our conditions, so be it. Over 90% probably won't be suitable, so don't plant five hectares of something that nobody's ever heard of. Be realistic," he concludes, "but don't be boring."

There's no question that the industry has come a long way since the dark days of overregulation and isolation. Producers now have the freedom to find specific clones of interesting grape varieties for their particular parcels of land. What they don't have is centuries of tradition to guide them on their journey. But at least it's a journey that can now get underway.