I was astonished when Lesley Beake, the founding editor of wine news, asked me to contribute online wine columns to wine.co.za in 1996. As a print freelancer with a career going back to the early 1980s, I wasn’t sure what this new beast called the Internet had to do with me. I was amazed anyone would pay for a column that would not appear in print. Print is in my blood. This Internet thang will never last I told colleagues – but I’ll give it a bash. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
So what do I know? Twenty-five years on, almost all the forty print titles I’ve written for over the years have ended up in the great recycling graveyard – and I’m approaching my five hundredth online wine column for wine.co.za. I’ve worked with eight outstanding editors – Lesley Beake, Jeanine Wardman, Nikki Lordan (now Ellis), Renee Barnard, Carla van der Merwe (now Joubert), Shante Hutton, Sheryl Faure and Trudie Webb – and two short-lived male editors – and they’ve all survived me. It’s been great working with the A (All-women) team, sharing a journey into wine.
The A (All-women) team
wine.co.za has grown alongside the wine industry, branching into food and wine tourism, transformation, sommelier, change and social responsibility initiatives – playing a prominent role in #wineforgood, #SaveSAwine, #DrinkSAwine, #60in60, and #jobssavelives campaigns during the Covid pandemic. It's impossible to summarise the hundreds of columns I’ve written for wine.co.za over three decades. Some of the major wine trends I’ve covered are the growth of the winelands as a global gastronomic destination, wine tourism, the branding of varietal heroes (Chenin Blanc, Pinotage, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Chardonnay, MCC), closures, alternate varieties, vineyard diversity, global warming, organic / biodynamic viticulture, old bush vines, and the challenges of the pandemic.
Keeping up with the technology alone has been a challenge for a Luddite and print dinosaur like me. When I started, interviewing winemakers on a landline, I keyed my notes into one of those old bulky monitors with fuzzy green pixels, filing copy via a dial-up line or fax. Led by techno-whizz, Kevin Kidson, wine.co.za pioneered live tastings with winemakers from their old offices in Hout Bay. Long before zoom and optic fibre, we would post comments and wait patiently for a written reply. Now I stream online tastings, join zoom launches, use high-speed optic fibre and follow social media.
In the early days, Kevin used to come along to a wine dinner with me occasionally as my plus-one, wearing my wife’s badge for a laugh. I was part of a team of freelance wine writers in those days, a generation which included the likes of Neil Pendock and Melvyn Minnaar. wine.co.za even launched a short-lived glossy lifestyle print magazine called Winescape which I enjoyed contributing to - but the future lay in an online wine news service and e-commerce. Staying ahead of the game, wine.co.za has built a globally read, go-to hub of many channels, growing partnerships with wineries, wineland tourism, opening an online wine shop, and more recently, direct online wine cellar shops.
Fast forward twenty-five years – and I’m attending a vertical tasting of Steenberg’s flagship Catharina Bordeaux-blend. The assemblage of one of the older blends is missing from the notes. Judy Brower, the warm public face of wine.co.za at many wineland functions – as well as chief photographer, bottle washer and CFO (Chief Food Organiser) – it says so on her job title – presses a few buttons on her smart-phone. A few seconds later, the tasting notes of all the vintages of Catharina roll up on-screen. Problem solved. “We’ve got thousands of tasting notes on our website. We should really promote this function of wine.co.za” says Judy with typical charm and humility.
While I’ve grown used to walking into hectically busy newsrooms at Independent Newspapers, the Sunday Times and magazine publishing offices over the years, it took me twenty years to visit the actual offices of wine.co.za in Somerset West. I was amazed they really existed outside of virtual space. That’s the essence of online, especially since Covid. Walking through this Internet portal into a busy beehive of workers was like waving Harry Potter’s wand – Open Sesame! Over a fabulous lunch to celebrate the tenth work anniversary of a colleague, I enjoyed the food made by Judy and multi-talented editor Trudie’s famous double-baked cheesecake – and hope I’m invited back one day soon.
Writing for wine.co.za is a rite of passage for South African wine writers. Over the years, wine.co.za has published the work of many of the world’s most famous wine writers. A new younger generation of wine writers, bloggers, PR and media influencers – I’m never quite sure exactly what they do but they sure are proliferating - has emerged in South Africa and it’s great to see talented writers like Malu Lambert and Samarie Smith (writing in her native Afrikaans on an English website – now that’s another wine.co.za innovation) joining the ranks of the regular contributors to wine.co.za.
The staying power of wine.co.za is remarkable in an industry which has changed beyond recognition over the last twenty-five years. I hope to contribute many more online wine columns to wine.co.za in future. And the wheel has turned full circle. As of January 2021, I’m also back in print on wine with a monthly opinion column for WineLand magazine called Howe-zat! It might be the only new wine print column in the world. Who knows, I might retrieve my old typewriter out of the garage one of these days. I miss bashing those old keys. If vinyl can make a comeback, anything is possible!
- In memory of Duimpie Bayly, wine legend, wise man, mentor and mensch. The last time we talked was over a tasting of Lanzerac Pinotage back to the holy grail of 1959. My interview with Duimpie is in the archive of columns on wine.co.za, A Passion for Pinotage (August 2019).
