Surprising news is that all ‘sherry’ and ‘port’ will have had to be removed from South African bottle store shelves as of the beginning of this month, yet a visit to ULTRA Liquors last week showed that little has changed on the shelves.

An article by Trade Law Chambers, entitled  ‘South Africa bids a final farewell to Port’, states that the names ‘sherry’ and ‘port’ are no longer allowed to be used in accordance with the Wine and Spirits Agreement, which formed part of the Trade Development & Cooperation Agreement, signed with the European Community, as of 1 January 2012.  The Agreement was negotiated more than twenty years ago, and came into effect eleven years ago. The article states that the agreement was at South Africa’s expense, the European Community being a powerful body which negotiated in its own favour.  According to the Trade Development & Cooperation Agreement ‘port’ and ‘sherry’ were deemed to fall within a ‘geographical indication’, or territory of origin, and may therefore not be used in any other part of the world, as is the case with ‘Champagne’. These geographic origins were seen to be loose names of origin of port and sherry, from Oporto and Jerez respectively, even though port is not even produced in Oporto, and similarly little sherry is made in the Jerez area.

The benefit of the Agreement for the South African wine and spirits industry was to have been a €15 million grant to restructure the industry, and to market and distribute its products, and was due to have been paid by 2000, but has not yet been received eleven years later.

The regulations state that ‘sherry’ and ‘port’ which were merchandised in stores before 1 January may be sold until the stock runs out, but new stock may no longer carry these names.  In ULTRA Liquors it was evident that some brands had dropped the ‘sherry’ and ‘port’ names, being descriptive instead, whereas Monis still has the ‘sherry’ name but very faint, hardly being noticeable.  The KWV is calling its ‘sherry’ ‘Cape Full Cream’ already.

POSTSCRIPT 13/1:  Carel Nel, the Chairman of the Cape Port Producers Association, posted the following coirrection to our article on wine.co.za: “The information in the article is not correct. Cape Port Producers can still sell any Port that is labelled before the 1 January 2012 as Port in any liquor outlet. Trade Law Chambers confirmed that they made a mistake in their article. Furthermore the Cape Port Producers will still use the term “Cape Port” in advertising and Cape Ruby, Cape Tawny and Cape Vintage on the lable”.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage