Black diamond wine
June 15, 2011
The rooftop of a mall in Gugulethu, a township some 15 kilometers (9 miles) outside of Cape Town, seems like an unlikely place to hold a wine festival.
The Gugulethu township was founded by the government as a residential area for black South Africans who were prohibited from living in white Cape Town neighborhoods during apartheid.
The majority of the 350,000 people currently living in Gugulethu survive on very little. The poorest of the poor reside in shacks made from zinc and wood.
But the community is also changing. Africa Melane, a South African radio personality and township resident at the wine festival in May, told Deutsche Welle that Gugulethu is home to a growing middle class whose members show a growing appreciation for good wine.
"To know that the wine industry is interested in coming to this part of the world and showcasing its offerings instead of waiting for me to go where they are - it's really encouraging," he added.
The man behind the festival, entrepreneur Mzoli Ngcawuzele, was on hand to showcase his own red wine, a merlot. He described the event as an attempt to address a largely untapped audience in the local wine industry.
Dubbed "black diamonds," they are considered the emerging black elite in South Africa. They are moneyed, well-educated and seen as a huge potential market.
"We have done a lot of work on the ground where we begin to convince people about wine," Ngcawuzele told Deutsche Welle. "Wine is the way to go."
A painful past
For some, that point is debatable, particularly in a place with a troublesome history of violence and high alcoholism rates. Fatima Shabodien, executive director of the non-governmental organization Women on Farms, said she believes township wine festivals like the one in Gugulethu are irresponsible.
"We are a very violent country, and a history of violence and the relationship with alcohol and violence is not a good one," she told Deutsche Welle.
According to statistics from the South African Institute of Race Relations, more than 700 people were murdered in Gugulethu between 2005 and 2010.
Meanwhile, South Africa's wine industry has its own troubled history. Under the "dop system," workers were paid with alcohol. Generations of farm workers suffered from alcoholism, and their children were often born with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Shabodien's NGO has spearheaded campaigns against the dop system, which was outlawed in 1960 but continued to be used until the 1990s. She brushed off the notion that township wine festivals like the one in Gugulethu are aimed at nation-building and bringing together South Africans across racial and economic barriers.
"Historically, black South Africans drink more beer, so they have a very active marketing campaign aimed at cultivating that market, because it is extensive and untapped," she said. "It's all about expanding sales."
Big business
The wine industry is a lucrative business, it contributes some 2.7 billion euros ($3.9 billion) to South Africa's economy. About 1.4 billion euros were generated in the Western Cape alone.
But the white entrepreneurs in the wine industry enjoy the majority of that wealth; only one wine farm in the country - run by Diale Rangaka and his wife, Malmesy - is completely black-owned. Their wine is sold under the M'Hudi label.
After apartheid ended in 1994, black South Africans were allowed to own land. The Rangakas took advantage of the government's land acquisition program and viewed 22 farms before settling on a modest property in Stellenbosch in 2003.
For Diale Rangaka, wine festivals like the one in Gugulethu should promote black wine producers, not just showcase black faces in the industry in a bid to show transformation.
"We are just creating a market for white wineries to suck money out of the black market," he told Deutsche Welle. "We are not helping black producers to participate in this bonanza."
Rangaka said he has never experienced overt racism in the wine industry, but despite support from some colleagues, he said black people are still marginalized in the business.
"You are going to get politeness and smiles, but very little help," he said. "You are not going to get anything that will help you advance your bottle one step."
Author: Linda Daniels / arp
Editor: Sean Sinico