The Country Cellars Orange River Winemaker of the Year Competition is the richest prize in SA wine. An annual tourney that pits the wines of the region’s five cellars with such evocative names as Grootdrink, Kakemas and Keimoes against each other via a series of blind winetastings, shines the spotlight on South Africa’s forgotten wine appellation. Last year’s winner, Bolla Louw from Kakemas, trousered prizes worth R55 000 including a trip to a foreign winemaking region.

Just how important these trips are to improving wine quality was brought home to me last week as I tasted around 80 wines submitted for this year’s competition alongside Darling Cellars winemaker Abe Beukes and Spar wine consultant Tinus van Niekerk in a preliminary screening process of wines submitted to the competition. Final judging will take place in mid-October, but several features are already clear.

The most obvious is the huge quality improvement in the wines from Upington Cellar. Van Niekerk ascribes a large part of this improvement to a two month trip to Cave de Cairanne, a co-operative of over eighty growers in the Rhône, by Jopie Faul, the cellar’s assistant winemaker. A new vibrancy and focus in his wines was self-evident.

Not that all foreign trips are as beneficial. Some years ago a viticulturalist went on a VinPro trip to Australia. Impressed by the revolutionary farming practice of non-pruning vines, he introduced the practice into a couple of prime Upington vineyards on his return. The result was a disaster: unruly plants that were impossible to harvest; fruit with hard and thin herbaceous flavours; wines with a high PH lacking colour; SO2 gluttons susceptible to bacterial contamination…

Traditional farming methods have been re-established and the vineyards are finally back to normal. Good fruit and improved winemaking practices make Upington look like a safe bet in next month’s competition.