Domestic bliss – for some

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

It has just been reported that Americans have posted yet another increase in wine consumption – for the 16th straight year! Their annual wine purchases for 2009 rose to 297 million cases, an increase of 0.08% on the previous year. But driving much of that increase was support for their domestic production – as imports declined by 2.2% to 74.3 million cases.

Clearly the American market is realising that it costs less to drink local – and is something South Africa would do well to ponder. The past week has seen seven judges blind tasting around 1 000 wines for WINE magazine’s upcoming Best Value Wine Guide. There’s a price ceiling of R60 for all wines – white, red, sparkling and fortified. With hand on heart, I have to admit (as did my fellow judges) that I don’t often drink wines at these sort of price points. I’m as guilty of label and reputation hunting or fashion following as anyone else. So it has been quite an eye-opener at just how many really decent, well-made and tasty wines are available for R60 or less.

Obviously, in some categories there is far more bang for your buck because of the input costs. Getting a really top notch red wine for R60 is not impossible but there are any number of seriously good varietal whites or white blends which offer more at the same price point. White blends, for example, had a hit rate of around 80% with some 40-odd wines of 54 which made it through to the final judging from the screening round being deemed good enough to make it into the Best Value Guide. Similarly, the muscadels had a high conversion rate – and why not when they are just so gorgeously charming in their ‘sunshine and raisins in a bottle’ simplicity! Another category which did well was rosé – again because of its simplicity, drinkability and not trying too hard.

That’s the good news – but there’s also bad news. It was also apparent how many winemakers believe they can pull the wool over consumers’ eyes. Thin, acidic, dilute nothing wines – or blatantly faulty ones – were swiftly weeded out but with some consternation since these were all bottled, market ready wines! “What were they thinking?” was a common refrain during the screening round…

But on the whole, the annual Value judging once again produced a raft of appealing, well-made wines at pocket pleasing prices. The Best Value Guide should be on shelves in October, coinciding with the November issue of WINE magazine.