Disclaimer: When it comes to wine in this city, I’m more privileged than a juvenile nepo-baby hire at a Fortune 500 company. The last time I drank a truly “bad” wine was a stolen gulp of communion wine from the church school I attended as a child. But even that was technically the blood of Christ given (well, not given) unto me. If I’m really honest, I don’t think I’ve consumed anything in the last 2 and a half years that isn’t considered premium or super-premium wine. I mean, just the other day, I walked into a friend’s cellar, dug up a bottle of 2017 Sadie Family Treinspoor, and guzzled it down with reckless abandon and no regard for human life.
Now while this sounds like I’m bragging (because I am), I say this to tell you that my scope of wine consumption in Joburg is extremely narrow. I am drinking the top 1 or 2% of wine (in terms of price point and rarity), with the top 1 or 2% of people (in terms of income and access to premium wines) in the city. To put it into perspective, the last bottle of wine I consumed with absolute impunity was a bottle of Rall Cinsault Blanc, which had a total production of 564 bottles in the 2024 vintage. While a wine like Alto Rouge (which is still considered a premium wine) is consumed at a liver-corroding 1 800 bottles per day.
4th Street (a wine that garnered one of the best descriptors I have ever read: "Unashamedly uncomplicated"), on the other hand, sold upwards of 50 million litres in South Africa in 2022 alone (and that number is probably grossly deflated). So when asked what do people drink in Joburg, I imagine it's a quadruple 4th Street...on the rocks. And that is completely fine. I imagine that if we ran dry of 4th Street on Johannesburg shelves, the wine economy would tank. So wines like these are important and should definitely be mentioned.
But, if I’m asked about my personal experience of wine in this constantly buzzing city, it's a very different perspective to the majority of its inhabitants.
Who are the top 1 or 2%?
The burning impulse here is to start naming names, but out of respect for my customers, friends, and the really inconvenient financial situation I’m in that requires me to have a job, I will refrain. What I will say, is that they come from all walks of life. People of different creeds, colours, ages, genders, non-genders, and varying (yet decently paying) occupations are all pulling the corks on wines that are the things of myths and legends.
You’ll find them stuffed like sardines between the wet walls of Mr Pants in Blairgowrie on any given night, frequenting the free tastings at boutique wine stores like Wine Menu (Kramerville) on Saturdays, and indulging in Joburg’s blossoming contemporary fine dining scene at the likes of Proud Mary (Rosebank) and Embarc (Parkhurst). If you see them, don’t tell them I sent you.
Why those places in particular?
The public watering holes they stick their faces into are largely predictable and within a very small radius. This is due to Joburg’s lack of good wine bars, and wine lists that aren’t sponsored by huge corporations pushing supermarket-variety wine. Notwithstanding, the people of Joburg are dynamic and curious. They move quickly and want to experience new flavours, interesting varieties, and even in the establishments they frequent, they expect to be offered something new each time.
My day job is in wine retail. I won't tell you where. I will say that it starts with a "W" and ends "ine Menu", but that's all you’re getting out of me. Nonetheless, the customer base that I service (with wine) is not novice drinkers. They are, for the most part, educated, sometimes through formal education (WSET, etc.) or through experience (attending formal tastings). The hooking point for these consumers is experiences, especially millennial drinkers. Formal tastings with winemakers, wine festivals, glassware experiences, and the type of invite-only events and rare allocations that are reserved for this type of halo consumer are what really drive excitement in this demographic.
How to effectively reach these consumers?
Not all consumers are educated in wine, and in my humble opinion, I don’t think that all consumers need to be educated; they just need to be curious. Since I have joined this industry, trade people have been singing the same tune of "we need to educate our consumers so we can sell more wine", and I disagree.
BMW doesn’t teach you how to build the 3 Series; they just tell you that it is "The Ultimate Driving Machine". Luxury goods are sold on emotion and stories. Asking a consumer to know the ins and outs of a product that you’re trying to sell them is literally like selling shoes to a cobbler. And as the saying goes, the cobbler's son has no shoes. Now, I might be bending this metaphor a bit, but you get what I’m saying.
The magic of wine is the mystery behind it. It’s the excitement of popping a new bottle and experiencing something unexpected. The fact that wine changes as it ages, and the allure of that, is a simple yet convincing testament. This is a hill I'm willing to die on (I think), as in my experience, consumers, no matter how educated or uneducated they are in wine, want one thing, and that's an experience. I would say that the experience of a bottle of wine is 50% juice and 50% storytelling. Stories can be equally good, no matter the level of education. We just have to tell the right stories.
The industry
The industry is filled with people whom I now call friends, as much as I call them colleagues. I have grown a huge respect for the expertise and sheer gusto of certain individuals. But the onus of the wine industry in Joburg, I believe, is not to teach consumers about things like aspect and diurnal shifts. It's to educate ourselves on how to tell better stories.
Having a decent amount of wine knowledge is certainly beneficial for anyone selling wine (that’s why product training exists). But what about the sales element? Engineers don’t sell BMWs; salespeople do. The engineers, or rather winemakers, in this industry who are effective salespeople are the ones who are effective storytellers (to be fair, I don’t think the lab coats in Bavaria are interested in stories).
Wine trade should focus on telling better stories to spark interest or curiosity in their consumer, instead of expecting them to know how the 20% drop in the quantity of Cabernet Sauvignon found in the current vintage of Paul Sauer, compared to last year, changes the profile of the wine (YAWN).
This, I believe, for the majority of consumers, is applicable for those who buy Grand Crus Burgundy as well as those who put jalapeño slices into their Sauvignon Blanc.
What does wine look like in the City of Gold?
You’ve read this far, haven't you?