What our Biodiversity message means to a winemaker

Bruce Jack
August

Since the Second World War global agriculture has without malicious intent embarked on a self-destructive path of unbalanced chemical fertilisation. It’s a long, tortuous story that continues to leave farmers underpaid and undervalued. This trajectory has lead to unhealthy, unbalanced soil that cannot fully hope to support the plants and crops swaying in the wind above it. These plants are disadvantaged by the imbalance and can not protect themselves. Their disease status in turn demands chemical herbicides and insecticides. The result is a spiral of unnatural imbalance which not only results in pollutants but far more importantly plants with radically reduced nutrient potential. Some recent agronomist reports suggest that we are only getting about 30% of the nutrient value from the food that our grandparents did.

It is not surprising that WHO (the World Health Organisation) recently released a massive report that couldn’t find a disease (1st World or Developing World) that wasn’t linked to nutrition.

So we should all realise by now that we have a responsibility to turn this around. In first world cities we have many opportunities to affect change. These include educating ourselves about the nutritional value and healthiness of everything we eat and drink. Farmers have arguably more far reaching opportunities. It is a mindset that isn’t going to change overnight. But we all have to start farming in a more sustainable way. This will mean different things for different farmers.

Biodiversity is about the diversity of all life forms on our planet. Unsurprisingly they are getting fewer at an alarming rate. Quite by chance South African winegrowers happen to live in one of the richest, most biodiverse places on earth. Our floral biodiversity alone is mind-boggling. Within the compact Cape floral kingdom which is where we farm there are more plant species than the entire northern hemisphere.

And so the responsible grape-growers and winemakers in South Africa have welcomed the opportunity to work closely with environmentalists to focus on protecting our unique environment. We are committed to farming as sustainably as possible; farming with respect to our land, our people and our heritage. This is the basis of the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative.

We hope to expand this philosophy and to use existing structures and industry schemes to regulate sustainable wine-farming from government level downwards. Most South African wine-farmers (over 90%) and winemakers are already participating in the three main self-regulating industry structures that will hopefully set the tone in the next three years for the most sustainable, eco-friendly viticulture in the world. The first step on this hard road is our industry’s enthusiastic commitment to the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative.

I am committed to this vision and I believe most of my peers know in their hearts that this is the right way to go. Unfortunately it isn’t going to be easy, which is obviously why it hasn’t been attempted elsewhere. Luckily for us in South Africa we have a unique set of circumstances that is ensuring we make this dream a reality - primarily we are used to the hard road – since our dramatic miracle of democracy, we know what’s possible if we stand together.

From a practical winemakers perspective we all recognise instantly that the same factors that have created this extraordinary biodiversity of flora also influence wine style and quality. The staggering diversity of soil types and soil ages, combined with radically differing climates over short distances mean we have a treasure trove of grape-growing and winemaking opportunities.

At Flagstone we call this aspect of our natural biodiversity: “Home Ground Advantage”. It means we can make more complex wines – a wonderful advantage in this tough, competitive world of wine. In fact, it’s almost impossible not to make interesting wine in the oldest, most diverse viticultura