One of the most sensible assessments of SA wine has just appeared in The Journal, a UK life-style magazine. Penned by Helen Savage, one of the most level-headed and nicest of UK commentators, it seizes on the idea of SA, one of the oldest New World producers, as being “a halfway house between the up-front fruit that characterizes some of its southern hemisphere competitors, and the elegance and restraint more usually associated with European wine.”

Ironically, this was one of the models considered and then discarded as corporate calling card for SA wine by people who get paid lotsa money to design these kinda campaigns, a few years ago.

Helen and Geordie Willis in Hong Kong earlier this year

The new DNA-SA strategy comes in for a fair amount of criticism from Chris Losh. Helen has a much more gentle (but even more powerful for all that) objection. “The unique selling point of South African Wines is that they ‘lead the world in producing wine with integrity’, says Su Birch, the CEO of Wines of South Africa. But although South Africa can properly boast more fairtrade wines than any other nation and has a far greater natural diversity of plant life than any of its competitors, which its wine producers are keen to preserve and protect, it’s not committed to organic viticulture or even to carbon neutrality.”

A point confirmed by the storm in the spittoon caused by a large SA bank launching its Organic Wine Awards last month. The seven page invitation – printed single side only – was mailed to producers in one of those large envelopes banks used to mail their annual reports to shareholders when they were still making money. Confirming Helen’s point that SA has a long way to go yet to win a best environment practice award.

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