Durban – There was a Facebook posting earlier this week showing the chardonnay grapes being harvested at Simonsig for that winery’s iconic Methode Cap Classique (MCC), with the caption stating: “It’s all systems go in the Cape Winelands... early mornings, late nights so hug a winemaker if you see one.”
While the subsequent commentary ranged from encouraging to downright X-rated, the essence is the new year’s wine-making endeavours are under way and those who appreciate the end result should raise a salute to the hard work, blood, sweat and tears that constitute the production of a great bottle of wine.
The reality is that South African wine is a multi-billion-rand industry, employing thousands of people, from farm owners to labourers, sales and distribution teams, marketing executives and thinkers, as well as the auxiliary services like bottling plants, labelling producers, tourism guides, accommodation and the hospitality services linked to wine farming.
That says nothing of the image South African wines present when offered on international tables (nearly 58% of our production is exported) as an incitement for tourists to visit our shores and travel to areas beyond just the winelands.
The country has 564 wine cellars crushing grapes and is ranked 12th globally in terms of the area under vines. It comes in ninth in terms of world production, accounting for four percent of wines produced internationally. No small feat.
Over the next few months, depending on where their farms are geographically and thus how swiftly the different varietals have ripened, winemakers will be surviving on a handful of hours’ sleep each night; many will be catching those precious restorative naps on camp beds in the cellars to be on hand for the routine pump-overs as the juice takes on the desired red hue from the skins and the excitement of harvest reaches its crescendo.
Harvest is undeniably hard labour and stress, but it is also the culmination of a year’s work and dedication. It is the time winemakers and their crew learn whether or not the decisions taken to allow Mother Nature to produce that crop of grapes to the best of her (and their) ability has paid dividends and whether that particular vintage will be one deemed “a good year” or “a bad year”.
Among French first growths, the hallowed upper echelons of the global wine industry, fortunes are made on good vintages, with many of those outstanding red wines lasting generations because the forces of nature and brilliant winemaking techniques produced something remarkable.
South African winemakers have the ability to achieve stratospheric heights too, so here’s holding our collective breath that 2015 is one of those years.
The Mercury