Wine Investment in South Africa - Cape Wine Academy

seeing négociants make huge profits at their expense. Changes in US law has seen some
Bordeaux Châteaux ship directly to purchasers in the US and négociant firm Millesima is
among the first to cut out others in the chain. Top Bordeaux producers have their own
agencies in place in major markets and this could make it easier for SA residents to
purchase wines at attractive investment prices. This could in fact stimulate an interest in SA
wine investment as consumers become more familiar and more confident in buying, holding
and trading. Selling top Bordeaux in SA to other South Africans might show how simple it
could be and how relatively low in risk. Getting South Africans to invest in European wine
successfully is perhaps the best way of stimulating investment in SA wines.
Investment wines are an exclusive category and SA wines must fight for their inclusion.
Waiting for the world to discover SA excellence puts us alongside Australia, California and
now Chile and New Zealand. SA winemakers need to be ambassadors for SA regions and
styles and need to be cognisant of the best from around the world. As Roland Peens says,
they need to ‘look outward’ and understand great wines, but then create greatness of their
own and the more uniquely terroir based the better. Beyers Truter has identified, ‘SA’s best
winemakers were much more in sync with their terroir than international commentators gave
them credit for’ ( Truter, 2011 ).
A shift in wine style, away from the fruity, soft tannin early drinkers seemingly so favoured by
a large part of the wine drinking public may not be necessary, at least for the top wines.
Most investment quality SA wines already possess the ability to age, with a structure and
balance that suggests long life. What is required, perhaps, is to educate potential investors
that certain wines improve over years and as with top Burgundy and Rhone may be less
enjoyable in their youth.
At the other extreme, there may be no advantage in creating ‘blockbuster’ wines big on
alcohol and fruit aimed at appeasing influential foreign judges with little to distinguish them
from other New World countries. It seems wrong just to ‘manufacture’ a wine in a style
which will score well in competitions and achieve the magical 90+ score.
‘One of the ugliest facets of the modern wine world is the rise of the point chaserspeople
who buy wine solely on the basis of Parker's ratings’ ( Goode, 2009).
SA wines would appear to have all the requirements to become highly investible. They are
achieving recognition abroad and because of years of isolation and a general dismissal of
SA as capable of producing world class wines many winemakers have been ‘compelled to
operate with more care, dedication and conviction than their international counterparts’
( Van Rensburg, 2011 ).
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