We were lucky enough to enjoy a couple of wine farms on the Helshoogte Pass yesterday afternoon. It was a stunning day and the surrounding mountains gave us a magnificent backdrop.
And at Oldenburg, the wines were pretty good too. Just good though, not “wow”. And with prices starting at R350 and finishing at R1500 a bottle, they really needed to be “wow”.
Ok. That R1500 was an outlier, but there were several wines in each of the 500s, 700s and 800s. And that seemed really excessive. I’m not claiming to be a big wine expert, but I’ve drunk enough and learned enough to know how good a local wine needs to be to command those sorts of pricces. And these really weren’t.
And that does raise the question of what’s going on with asking that much at the cellar door for very decent – but not exceptional – SA wine.
Is it for the tourists? Or is it for the Gautengaleng posers? The tasting was expensive, but it was exceptional: it felt like a premium experience, with a passionate and very knowledgeable host and Argon injected bottles so as to preserve the integrity of the wine. Ooh!
And, as mentioned above, the setting is incredible.
And while any wine (or any thing) is, of course, worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for it, I just don’t see why anyone would pay that for it and how they can justify changing that much for their wares.
And then Zorgvliet, where the wine was nowhere near as good, the setting nowhere near as dramatic, and the service rather hurried and impersonal. Least said, soonest forgotten.
But the prices still utterly ridiculous.
Is this the way we’re going now? Chancing our arm on the favourable exchange rate and some gullible and slightly pissed tour groups? The tasting experience is one thing, sure: make it exceptional, make it memorable. Maybe charge a bit more. Make them want to come back.
But we don’t need to be charging that much for not “wow” wine.
For me, that’s not a good look. And it’s even worse when you’re just gullible and slightly pissed, but on the local end of the exchange rate. So let’s not be another country ripping tourists (and as a bycatch, locals) off. There are plenty of very good wineries producing very good wines for which they are not charging outrageous prices. Neethlingshof and even Spier are good examples off the top of my head if you happen to be out that way. (And if Spier is ripping tourists off less than you, something is up.)
And if they can do it, why can’t everywhere else?