In a glass of its own: 363 years on, South African wine industry needs you to spread the word on auspicious birthday

The South African wine industry is inviting everyone to get behind an initiative focussed on promoting the date that wine was first made from Cape grapes.

On 2 February 1659, Jan van Riebeeck recorded in his diary: “Today, praise be to God, wine was made for the first time from Cape grapes.”

Today, 363 years later, the business community, wine producers, social sippers, connoisseurs, restaurateurs, tourism organisations, collectors and retail outlets are being asked to help promote South Africa’s wine birthday.

Since 2012, the Board of Groot Constantia initiated and instituted the February Wine Harvest Commemorative Event to encourage and honour visionary leadership in the wine industry. This event has three aspects: the blessing of the harvest, the commemoration of the first wine from Cape grapes made in 1659 and honouring wine industry leaders.

On Friday 11 November, media and wine industry stakeholders were invited to attend an early birthday celebration lunch held at Groot Constantia.

CEO of Groot Constantia Estate, Jean Naudé, says, after 10 years of holding the event, having looked at it from various angles and seeing the various benefits it holds, a vision of how it could benefit the entire wine industry has crystallised.

“We now see the potential there is in the birthday of the South African wine industry. It’s a concept that’s now nearly 300 years old, more than 300 years old, but the industry has not tapped into the full potential of the birthday of the South African wine industry.”

Naudé says to best appreciate the potential it may hold, you need to compare it to another birthday that is celebrated across the globe.

“Christmas is a birthday. We too are sitting on a birthday. And if you look at what retailers have done with Christmas, then you understand the potential there is in the birthday of the South African wine industry. We all know the creativity retailers have around Christmas to sell products and we need them to apply that to the wine industry’s birthday.”

Describing their vision, Naudé says it comprises a three-pronged approach.

“The one is that the commemorative wine harvest event will just be a part of the total celebration of the South African wine industry. Currently, it’s basically the only celebration and it should be just a part of the total celebration.”

Secondly, he says, besides celebrating it on a much wider scale locally, the concept also needs to be marketed abroad.

Lastly, he says, instead of focussing on just one day in February, the entire month should be celebrated.

“There are a lot of significant wine-consuming dates in February. The most important one is Valentine’s Day. Someone in Holland will drink a bottle of French wine on Valentine’s Day; they should drink a bottle of South African wine.” 

Naudé adds that they see Groot Constantia’s role as that of being a catalyst.

“We are just there to tell people about this, but we don’t have the manpower nor the money, nor the time to take this thing further. It’s like passing a baton on to other people and saying, we’ve seen this, run with it and go with it. It is for us, from the industry side; primary producers need to take it to their distributors and distributors need to take it to retailers. And that’s where we are now.”

• To access the promotional material, visit https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/008wwukgtn9ivfgr0tmqn/h?dl=0&rlkey=op8oa0zlztuxfjqfbyvo09kk2