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
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Hi Chris,
I used to work in Jerez. I can assure you that there are vast amounts of sherry produced in the region, & very good (hic) it is too!!
Rgds,
Nick
That is the second correction to my legal source’s knowledge (or lack of!) about Jerez Nick (the other was from Michael on Twitter).
Despite all the protestation that not all sherry comes from Jerez and not all port from Oporto, South Africa signed the agreement, and therefore nothing about this naming change will change.
Chris
..and I used to drink in Jerez! (hic) and it is one of the few things I miss in S Africa. Nothing here comes close to say the Valdespino Innocente fino or a Hidalgo Manzanilla.
Hi Chris,
Just a couple of snippets re Port & Sherry.
Port is produced only in the defined area of the Douro valley at the heart is the Douro River which leads to the city of Oporto where most of the Merchants were based begining around 1678.
Until 1986 all Port wines had by law to be bottled and matured at Villa Nova de Gaia on the left bank of the river opposite Oporto. So although not grown in Oporto this was the epicentre of the industry.
Sherry is produced in the Province of Cadiz of which by far the largest district is Jerez de la Frontera and responsible for the largest Sherry production. It is almost certain that that the Phoenicians started the ball rolling around 1100BC when they founded Gadir (today Cadiz) and introduced viticulture then moved inland to establish Exera (Jerez of today). The Moors introduced the Alembic still in the middle ages which gives us the basis of Sherry (Jerez).
As with Champagne nowhere else in the World enjoys the soil and climate of Jerez which is afterall what makes the final product so unique.
On the 1st January 1996 Sherry regained exclusive use of it’s name in Europe.
Cap Classique has proven you don’t need to hide behind someone elses pedigree if you have a great product, let the others follow suit.
Thank you for your detailed insight Nigel.
What are you seeing the local ‘sherry’ and ‘port’ producers doing with their labels to meet this change?
Chris
Hi Chris
Not to sure what the handfull of local “Sherry” producers want to do as they yend to keep things to themselves.
The old SAPA which was representative of all SA Port Producers already committed some 15 years ago to droping the name Port to just “Cape Ruby”, “Cape Vintage” Etc.
In fact around that time at the SAPA AGM the guest speaker was Andrew Quady from California who was well know for his “Ports”, Muscats Etc. He had registered in the USA “Starboard”, tongue in cheek way to represent Port style fortified wines and was happy to share the use of that title with his SA counterparts – SAPA did not take up his offer. The sort of thing we would expect of Charles Back……..
Thank you for sharing that information Nigel.
Chris
Anyone selling “cape amontillado”, or whatever it is called now?
Monis is the best local brand.