war in South Africa, followed by depression. Looking at contemporary accounts of wine-lands problems, the wonder is that the industry survived. Not only that: bizarrely, production increased during the difficult years. In 1860, when one would have thought that wine farmers would have already turned to something else if they could, or at least have ceased planting, there were 55 million vines planted; in 1875 there were nearly 70 million. The league table for that year shows Paarl ahead as usual with some 21 million vines, followed by Stellenbosch with 16 million. Then come some areas that had not featured before in this story, and had become viable through improved communications within the colony, particularly the railway lines—and it is presumably these new plantings by hopeful pioneers that account for the overall increase: Oudtshoorn, Robertson, and Worcester each had more than 5 million vines; the Cape, Malmesbury (Swartland), Tulbagh, and Riversdale about half of that number.
Although reliable statistics from this time are hard to come by, a government report notes that in 1882–1883 wine production was nearly 40,000 leaguers, up from 25,000 in 1860. Brandy production had proportionately grown even more, to more than 11,000 leaguers, reflecting the one pale gleam on the winemakers’ horizon: the possibility of exports to the hard men and no doubt equally hard women in Kimberley, where the diamond rush had begun in 1866. In 1888, about 4,905 leaguers of spirits were sent to Kimberley, something like half of the total production. From the late 1880s the goldfields of the Transvaal also offered the prospect of some profit to those toiling in the vineyards of the Western Cape. Dr. Hahn, in a report of 1882, was emphatic that, taking into account local costs and quality and the price of wine in Europe, “the idea of exporting Cape wine to Europe at present must be altogether abandoned”; the diamond fields, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State were much more likely prospects, with drinkers perhaps rather less discriminating than those in England—or indeed, than the English in the Cape Colony, where much more wine was imported than exported at the time and certainly not enough of the local product was drunk to please the farmers and merchants.
Less than ever was there doubt in the minds of the authorities (and of drinkers!) that the quality of Cape wine was also very low. In 1887 yet another report to a concerned Parliament stressed, “The production of wine is still increasing but . . . there is no demand for the increased production. The price for wine has therefore gone down considerably, especially of the inferior kinds, of which some are almost unsalable, as they are unfit even for making spirits.” In 1885, after Baron Carl von Babo was appointed as government viticulturist, his first report, which included scathing views of winemaking techniques, recommended the founding of the model farm and viticultural school at Groot Constantia.
In fact, the viticultural school there never seems to have amounted to much, in the face of the pressing need for the farm to produce wine in commercial quantities to satisfy the Treasury as well as enough American rootstocks to satisfy phylloxera-ridden farmers. This is a great pity, as there were signs that a deal of good might have been achieved. Viticulturally, for example, apart from planting with better varieties, there were useful trials of different trellising and vine-spacing practices, and successful experimental treatments for pests like the snoutbeetle (a pernicious weevil). In the cellar, among other investigations, inoculated yeasts were tried and observed. And the benefits of the “attemporator” or “cooling worm”—basically a coil of pipe carrying cool water through the fermenting must—did in fact reach far beyond Constantia. But a later viticultural expert, Raymond Dubois, pointed out the inadequacies of even Groot Constantia as a model. Australia, he said, has “better buildings, more advanced and fitted with modern machinery and time and labour-saving implements,” while “there is not one cellar in the whole of the Colony fit to guarantee good wine.” Unfortunately, his 1905 report indicates little continued progress in experimental work or establishing a teaching institution. The straitened financial state of the colony, suffering a severe depression after the wars between Britain and the Boer republics, was blamed.
So severe was the effect of the “prevailing depression” on the wine industry that various commissions were appointed to look into the condition of the wine districts. A 1905 inquiry “established beyond a doubt that the Wine and Brandy Industry is at present in an alarming state of depression.” A lengthier 1909 commission report gives a useful overview of the state of the industry. The great majority of wine farms were mortgaged, the commission noted, and in most areas land values were greatly depreciated. No longer was there a labor shortage. The commission remarked that “the wages paid have decreased considerably, and . . . the condition of the labouring classes generally is a deplorable one . . . ; the grower has been forced to confine himself only to the most necessary of work on his farm.” It quotes a farmer in Paarl saying, “It used to be very difficult for us to get coloured labor, but now if you hold up your finger you can get hundreds.”
But production was, as ever, excessive. The average harvest in 1907 and 1908 yielded nearly 45,000 leaguers. The 1909 harvest was apparently a very poor one, however—“a decided blessing in disguise, seeing that, as far as can be ascertained, considerable stocks of wine and spirits of the previous vintage were still on the hands of merchants, farmers and certain of the Wineries at the commencement of this year.” In fact, there is some evidence that the area of the colony’s vineyard had decreased. The commission noted that census returns for 1904 had given the total area under vines as 16,610 morgen (a morgen being about 0.85 hectare), while for 1909 it appeared to be 10,120 morgen. This major decline doubtless reflects the depredations of the assiduous phylloxera: in 1904 there were some 19.25 million grafted vines and still 58.5 million ungrafted ones—presumably many of the latter had succumbed by 1909 and not been replaced.
But more than the total production, perhaps, it is interesting to note the proportions of the different varieties given for 1909. Greengrape was still by far the largest contributor to the total, but down from its near-monopoly to 40 percent. Steen (Chenin Blanc), White French (Palomino), and Red Muscadel (Muscat) were high on the list, but Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc now featured (Syrah was not listed, but was planted at Groot Constantia in the 1890s). More significant was the rise of Cinsaut (called Hermitage). It appears to have been brought into the country about 1880 and in 1909 was third only after the two popular white grapes. The commission in fact specifically connected Hermitage to a factor it identified as contributing to excess wine production, the racial prohibition that had grown up in southern Africa: “Before the imposition of restrictions on the sale of liquor to Natives in the Transvaal, a large demand existed among the Natives on the mines in that country for Hermitage, sweetened and slightly fortified”—thus accounting for the growth in those plantings. The commission noted that in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, “the sale or supply of liquor to any coloured person is prohibited”; an essentially similar situation prevailed in Natal, and “in most districts of the Cape Colony itself restrictions prevail against the sale of wine and spirits to the aboriginal native.” These were all British colonies, and it hardly needs pointing out, of course, that racism did not leap forth new from the head of the National Party when it came to power in 1948 and formalized apartheid.
One response to the severe crisis was producer cooperation. The 1905 government inquiry had recommended the establishment of cooperative wineries to enable more effective use of machinery and lower costs, as well as to realize the benefits of collective marketing. With substantial government financial support, nine cooperatives were established, the Drostdy in Tulbagh being the first in 1906. Four of them, however, were not to survive long in the continuing conditions of slump and overproduction. But a man called Charles Kohler was already starting to work on his conviction that only a centralized, unifying body could resolve the crisis. The organization that was born from the crisis and Kohler’s work was to change fundamentally the course of Cape wine production. “South African wine production” we should call it now, in light of the political uniting of the two defeated boer republics (Transvaal and Free State) with the two British colonies (Cape and Natal) as the Union of South Africa in 1910. That unity was to also affect the wine industry, which was henceforth, after its earlier central importance in the Cape’s economy, to be just one struggling agricultural sector among others in the eyes of a national government—all needing, at this period,
