Read the riot act earlier this year about my criticisms of SA’s wine export marketing efforts (“your negative comments are ammunition for our competitors”) I’ve decided to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and not to mess with Mr. In-between. To illustrate my last remark, does anyone have an e-mail address for Ger Bergkotte? Ger is wine buyer for KLM and if Jan van Riebeeck were alive today, my bet is he would be a captain of a KLM 777-200 and Ger would be his quartermaster.

Onze Jan by Phula Richard Chauke

Ger clearly knows his onions as his KLM Business Class offering was voted best in the world by Business Traveler magazine last year. As Holland’s premier wine writer Hubrecht Duijker notes “KLM is serious about wine… [they] only want to serve world class wines. And go a long way to select them. Each and every wine is chosen at blind (NB the sighted wine guide knitting circle) tastings by an expert panel.”

Their October offering is certainly a catholic one: Billecart-Salmon Brut NV Champagne, Viognier from Argentina, a white blend from Vin de Pays d’Oc, pudding wine from Down Under (the unforgettable Lillypilly Sweet Harvest), Carmènere-Carignan from Chile, a brace of Ports (one pink) and a Bordeaux. And not a single wine from SA.

A national disgrace in the year celebrating the 350th birthday of wine being made in the Cape by Jan. There is Cognac aplenty (Rémy Martin) and whisky galore (Chivas Regal and Highland Park) but not a drop of SA brandewijn, even though the Dutch invented the stuff.

Heck, there is even a Dutch wine billed as “KLM’s Special White Wine”: an Auxerrois 2008 from De Kleine Schorre, a vineyard on an island in the coastal province of Zeeland. Which reminded me of the couple of vineyards Jan’s successor, Simon van der Stel, owned in the low country which encouraged him to lay out Groot Constantia.

Rather than following grandiose dreams and pricey schemes like flying New York sommeliers to the SA generic tasting in London (as happened earlier this month, only to fall flat when the sommeliers complained the wines being showcased were not available in the Big Apple), SA wine marketers should go for a couple of easy wins.

Like securing a listing for one SA wine and one brandy on KLM. If they want to go large and bring a smile to Jan Scannell’s dial (who as MD of Distell picks up the lion’s share of their bills), then propose Amarula as a replacement for Baileys. After all, isn’t some big sports event going down in SA next year?

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