Glut heralds a heady ride on the price roller-coaster
The word in the vineyard is that there's going to a bit of a glut in the quantities of wine this season...one would naively imagine this is going to mean a break for the consumer in terms of wine prices, but living in South Africa has made us realise that that is based on a very shallow understanding of capitalist economics.
Prices are like helium balloons here, they only begin to come down when they're so high in the sky that no one cares for them anymore. Then we also have to factor Trevor Manuel's 21c per litre increase - just watch as this is used as a reason to increase prices by a factor of two.
The price of wine is a perennial debate. On the one hand, it's true to say that, for too long, we have been spoilt with decent wines being far cheaper that world standards. But these are decent wines, not necessarily world-class wines.
Now that we have begun to make some real classy numbers again we have wines that can justify a solid price tag - the kind of wine that you have as a special occasion drink. But many of the ordinary wines also seem to think that they can jump the higher ticket bus.
Prevailing wisdom is that they will be caught out, that the consumer is no dummy. Which is true (who can doubt it!), but the faster delimitation will be the price we realistically can pay for a bottle.
We're not going to catch a wine out that we can't afford to buy, so it will languish and gather bottle age - another historic test of a wine's quality that now seems to be becoming more and more irrelevant as wines are downed in their youth, leading winemakers to make them more drinkable in their youth, and the spiral tightens.
What we need is more stratification of the prices, so that there are more wines available at every price point and the competition can improve what you get within each category. Let's hope that capitalism does take care of this one.
Meanwhile, new wineries spring up, still optimistic due to the boom that typified the Nineties. I recently visited two: Dornier up the Blaauwklippen Road and Zorgvliet on the Helshoogte, which has a touristy tasting room with shades of Afro curio shop cutesy, and a modern cellar that will soon be open to visitors.
The philosophy behind Dornier's wines is founded on blending. They make a blend of chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc and semillon, called Donatus White, that is simultaneously delightful and very interesting: a compelling combination.
Zorgvliet have released the Silver Myn range of "premium" wines while their "ultra premium" Zorgvliet wines are crafted.
It's a pity about the hyperbole, but the sauvignon blanc that's in the cellar as we speak could cause a real stir on release. In the meanwhile, their Silver Myn wines are reasonably priced and all are soft and very drinkable.