The African connection: + or -?

Posted: January 25th, 2012 | By Neil Pendock | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,
  • 1 Comment
  

The image of the SA wine industry “hanging from the lips” of Dr. Johann Rupert at the Vinpro Info Day last week reminded me of Gulliver when he awoke to find himself tied down by the Lilliputians. “Die gehoor van sowat 500 wynboere het aan sy lippe gehang…”

Johann told the liquid Lilliputians “Ons handelsmerk is nie korrek nie. Ek haat dit om dit te sê, maar as jy oorsee is, is die grootste kommunikasie oor Afrika dié van mense wat geld insamel vir liefdadigheid en dit is ’n beeld van honger babas met vlieë op hulle. So, Afrika, so lief soos ons vir Afrika is, se beeld is nie so goed soos Europa s’n vir byvoorbeeld verwerkte voedselprodukte nie.” Basically Africa does not have a great image, so should we really portray ourselves as Africans if we want to export? I say YEBO!

While Johann spoke a lot of sense, I suspect on this one he will be pleasantly contradicted when Distell – in which he is the largest shareholder – announces earnings up 20-25% for the last six months of 2011. I’m betting sales into Africa will continue to boom, confirming just how inept SA marketers have been in neglecting our northern neighbours and the potential of a continent incontinent for wine. Too alcoholic for effete Europeans? Bring on the big stuff in Brazzaville!

Sure Stellenbosch stuffed the SumbandilaSat satellite project, with the craft tumbling out of control in space (wags say it should be renamed WOSA or SuSat), but Sauvignon and Shiraz are a different matter.

In addition to Abidjan, after Brazil overtook the UK as sixth largest economy in the world last year, perhaps we should be selling in Salvador and Sao Paulo. Brazilians, many descended from slaves, love the African connection. The Cape Town Waterfront’s Mr. Wine, Vaughan Johnson, points out that the only people who drank wine during the 2010 soccer World Cup were from Brazil. Brits and Germans drank beer.

While Europe crashes into recession, orders from Oxford will be under pressure but it is worth remembering that Picasso got most of his revolutionary ideas from African Art while safaris and game rangers are still popular in Stuttgart.

Related posts:

  1. Chinese nouveaux riches far too snooty to want to buy South African wine Sir David Tang, agony uncle on the Weekend Financial Times,...
  2. China Crisis WOSA (Wines of SA, the exporters’ mouthpiece) CEO Su Birch...
  3. Biodiversity Bombshell WOSA, the wine industry’s embattled marketing quango, are like a...
  4. WOSA hugs the wrong tree The recent contention of Richemont chairman Johann Rupert that WOSA,...
  5. Motor Cars and Mourning Driving down to Inchanga yesterday to fetch two dozen Simon...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

 

Comments

 

pinto

January 25, 2012 at 9:52 pm

Unfortunately, Johan Rupert is quite correct and thank heavens someone has finally addressed the elephant in the room. The result is SA has to try twice as hard to be really noticed and the millstone around our neck is the quality of our entry level wines in foreign shops, most of which won’t win anyone friends.

For now we are ‘stuck’ with the European markets which can’t be dumped overnight unless we want to commit commercial suicide (the part of Europe that’s crashing are wine producing countries themselves and unlikely customers anyway). The few African oil barons and their charge simply won’t balance the books (yet) and Brazilian protectionism result in prohibitively expense wine other than homegrown (hence their thirst for the stuff abroad). China, Russia and India are real propositions, but will the nouveau riche obsessed with Lafite and Cristal have Chateau Ubuntu on their table?

The big man has spoken. Listen to someone who knows a thing or two about international marketing. And have a long, hard look at Argentina and Chile. Both have managed just fine to shed their pariah past image and wine is just about the first association non-geeks have with those names. Beef probably second.

It can be done.

(Re. Argentina, Andrew Jefford has an excellent blog posting on the Decanter site called “Look at the table”).

Leave a Comment





  • About

    Called "South Africa's most influential wine writer" by DrinksBiz, a "wijngoeroe" by De Telegraaf, a "Master of SA Writing" by Ernst Gouws and voted “most trusted palate” by readers of WINE magazine, Neil Pendock is South Africa’s leading Indie drinks commentator.

    An "enthusiastic amateur", he owns a small farm on the Paarderg which used to supply a few grapes to Swartland Winery, a producer he never wrote about. After two decades in the spittoon, he retains a healthy disregard for the anoraks, bowties and Emperors of drink and their new clothes.
Afrigator