Got up at five for the 6.15 a.m. plane from Jo’burg to Cape Town. The airline’s the jolly joker of South Africa: on board they say "Everything you leave behind including husbands, cows and kids will be divided among the flight's crew!" Ha.
A driver from Thandi vineyards was apparently waiting for me at the airport in Cape Town. I was there waiting and so was he but we didn’t manage to meet up. In the end I rented a car and set off on my own. My driver look-and-find rate just dropped to 50% for this year...
Thandi is one of the first fair trade vineyards and wine houses in South Africa. I met our buyer, Hans Bootsma, at the farm and we drove through the vineyards. Hans’ knowledge of grapes and wines is amazing. I’m just a simple guy who either likes a wine or doesn’t; he can write a book about almost every wine he tastes. Hans was in South Africa because of the Cape Wine fair. He visited several vineyards and tasted lots of wines. We also tried to get an overview of the fair trade wines that are available. There were a lot of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) initiatives presenting themselves at the Fair. BEE is the buzzword in South Africa; the organization’s trying to help non-white people catch up in business. If you want a major discussion, start talking about BEE.
The Thandi farm is an amazing venture. We’re selling a red and a white wine that comes from them. We tasted a new rosé and it seems promising. This was my first wine tasting ever! I sniffed, and sniffed again, trying to look professional. I tasted, I spat. No one was fooled and I was quickly exposed as the one and only amateur in the room.
I sort of recognized Jan, one of the growers at Thandi. I had an article in my backpack and when I took it out I saw the same Jan featuring in an article on Thandi. He blushed, and everybody had a good laugh about the promising future he has as a movie star.
Hans Bootsma, our wine buyer
Over the rest of the week we tasted a lot more. Bouwland, available at our Gall & Gall stores, will hopefully be fair trade accredited at the end of the year. Fairhills, from Origin, looks like a promising extension of our fair trade range at Albert Heijn. Fairhills features a screw cap. I always thought that was for cheap wines only, but nowadays that’s no longer true. Fairhills produces good wines at good prices and it’s the largest fair trade project in the world. Next time I am in Cape Town I’ll visit the farm.
The other days I was in Cape Town I visited Capespan and Fruitways, both large export organizations that also export from fair trade farms. The Erfdeel farm lies in a remote area at a two hour drive from Cape Town. It’s beautiful there and they grow good tasting clementines and navel oranges. Now we have to discuss with Gé Happe, the category manager at Albert Heijn and Jelger de Vriend, the buyer, to see if and how we can introduce these fair trade fruits.
And that was the week. After a big steak at Spurs I boarded my flight to Jo’burg. After circling over the city for some time, some of the passengers had the distinct impression that the pilot didn’t know exactly where Jo’burg was. We finally landed.