LIQUID INVESTMENTS
MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Chasing fickle market for flavour of the month is no substitute for brand building
While the pursuit of the new is very much a 21st-century phenomenon, there comes a point when the enterprise becomes self-defeating
It’s become fashionable to celebrate the small volume of hand-crafted wines produced often in tiny quantities using grapes acquired from growers who lack wineries. This is no bad thing: before young, entrepreneurial winemakers sought out these unique parcels, the fruit landed up in enormous receiving bins at co-ops where whatever virtues and charms they may have had was diluted by the averaging effect of the crush. These sites make it possible for landless winemakers to produce fabulous wines. Their successes have saved valuable old vineyards, which would certainly have been lost, while their enterprise has raised the profile of the Cape wine industry wherever journalists focus their craft on the excitement of "discoveries". While the pursuit of the new is very much a 21st-century phenomenon, there comes a point when the enterprise becomes self-defeating. London, fashion centre of the world of wine, demands a "new" and unknown cultivar more or less every year. Aglianico had its mome...
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