WOSA, the wine industry’s embattled marketing quango, are like a Western Leopard Toad on the R45 from Malmesbury to Wellington in the path of a tractor-trailer full of Pinotage grapes.  In January, the largest investor in SA wine, Johann Rupert rubbished WOSA’s much vaunted biodiversity focus.  “Mense koop nie wyn as gevolg van biodiversiteit nie.  Ons moet ’n eenvoudige, opregte, herhalende boodskap kry, en dit is nie biodiversiteit nie.”  People don’t buy wine because of biodiversity.  We need a simple, righteous, repeatable message and it isn’t biodiversity.

Endangered wine marketer

Johann’s cudgel is taken up by Michael Fridjhon, SA’s most successful wine show entrepreneur, in Business Day today: “we are going to need something more exciting than the ‘biodiversity of the Cape’s floral kingdom’ to win the hearts and minds of wine drinkers around the world.  Although he lost me when he claimed “we can’t beat our £4-£29 average UK price point, which translates to less than R12 a bottle for the producer.”  Huh?  You sell a wine for £29 (R356) in the UK and only get R12 – sounds like a rip-off to me!

Of course an ecologist will tell you that biodiversity is necessary to avoid species extinction.  Who knows, perhaps a little diversity in senior circles at WOSA may yet prevent a catastrophe and mass extinction of managers.