the horse's mouth: May 2012

Friday, May 11, 2012

The SA industry is planning a new ethical standard - what's the point?

The South African wine industry is besieged by standards. There's the IPW (Integrated Production of Wine) which was introduced in 1998 and is South Africa's voluntary environmental sustainability scheme. Then there's SAWIS (S A Wine Industry Information & Systems) whose certification seal shows the wine has been certified by the Wine and Spirit Board and is a mark of authenticity. Linked to it is the WO (Wine of Origin) scheme which marks providence. And of course there's the ubiquitous BBBEE, designed to help level the playing field. That's all before you've entered the international game, in which case you'll need an HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points), or a beefed up version for the UK called a BRC (British Retail Consortium), or an ISO (International Organization for Standardization). So what is this new standard? And is it really necessary?

WIETA is an South African ethical trade in agriculture initiative. It was established a decade ago and describes itself as 'a multi-stakeholder, non-profit voluntary organisation which actively promotes ethical trade in the wine industry value chain'. There is support from a body of international retailers, unions and established industry organisations to help WIETA establish an ethical seal that will testify to reasonable working conditions, based on rigorous and closely monitored qualification criteria. Sounds good. Clearly, fair and equitable treatment of workers is the right thing: morally, economically, socially, ethically, politically, legally. You would be hard pushed to argue otherwise.

The impetus behind this new standard, which will entitle producers who make the grade to use the seal on their wine, seems to have been twofold. Firstly, to counteract the negative publicity surrounding cases of labour malpractices in the wine industry; WIETA CEO Linda Lipparoni (quoted on wine.co.za) hopes that the standard will 'protect them from any potential negative publicity resulting from those who flout the law'. And secondly, to bring all the many ethical standards under one major umbrella ethical certificate.

The WIETA standard 'precludes the use of child labour, asserts that employment should be freely chosen and that all employees should have the right to a healthy and safe working environment. Amongst the conditions it sets are that workers should have the right to freedom of association, a living wage and to be protected from unfair discrimination. Worker housing and tenure security rights should also be respected.' And what monster could disagree with that? But, hold your righteous horses a second, aren't there already serious measures in place to ensure all this already happens? Even if you wanted to, you can't just go about firing people on a whim - the CCMA would have your guts for garters! Fortunately South Africa has a very highly developed legal system, first world labour laws and conforms to fierce ILO (International Labour Organization) standards - so wouldn't the right course of action, in a case of any of the above, be vigorous legal action rather than a wrap on the knuckles from WIETA?

Perhaps it is insufficient government control and support of these stringent laws that allows the odd malfeasant to slip the noose? No doubt there are black sheep out there. But will another acronym, rather than a vigilant legal system and a watchful media, bring them back into the fold? Perhaps wine producers could simply wear WIETA funded stickers that say 'Law Abiding Citizen!'.

What do you think?

Want to know more?

http://www.ipw.co.za/

http://www.sawis.co.za/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard_analysis_and_critical_control_points

http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html

http://wieta.org.za.www34.cpt3.host-h.net/

http://www.wine.co.za/News/News.aspx?NEWSID=20300&Source=News

Friday, May 4, 2012

2012 Harvest

The 2012 harvest has come and gone in a blur of bountiful activity. As Freddie puts it 'this is the best year I have seen in my 41 years of working in the vineyards'. Rarely is there such an plentiful harvest where abundance is matched by exceptional quality. Across the board the wines are set to be stella; the white wine is fresh, varietally correct and displays both good depth and structure; the red wines, a bit more difficult to judge at this stage, have great colour and tannin yet remain free from green or raisin flavours.

How did this happen? The 'grape' weather has to take a lot of credit. It all started well with the healthy weather and sunny days of November 2010 which determined the fruit set, leading to fruitful buds (or eyes) and ultimately helping to result in the good bunch sets of the 2012 harvest. It's strange to think that weather conditions from 18 months ago had an influence on this year's harvest.

The early growing season was dominated by very dry weather with mild sunny days. This encouraged good, even growth patterns and (thankfully!) zero incidence of disease such as the dreaded powdery mildew or its evil cousin downy mildew. Robertson is a dry region so our vines need to be irrigated. This can work in our favour as it enables us to stress our vines at various times and to produce small, intensely flavoured berries. It also results in thick skins for the grapes which provide effective resistance to rot late in the season.

The summer was hot but January more so than usual. I think red grape varieties need a bit of heat during the growing season to burn off any excess herbaceous flavours. So, unpleasant as the scorching weather was, the results on the vines were positive. February and March were milder allowing the grapes a smooth ripening period and avoiding any 'jammy', overripe characters.

The sheer size of the harvest meant Johan, our winemaker, had to work magic to fit it into the winery. When the last grapes were received and safely stowed in the cellar, we had harvested over 3,500 tonnes but still had contingency space for 3 more tonnes - how's that for organisation!