Stellenbosch: Wine route contributed a staggering R7.2 Billion to SA’s 2019 GDP

Everywhere you go in Stellenbosch, it’s obvious the town’s economy relies hugely on wine, tourism, and education. And, from what I’ve noticed over many years of observation, Stellenbosch University students play a laudable role in supporting the two other economic sectors.

Given that both Blaauwklippen and Rustenberg claim to have planted their first vines in the area in 1682, you’d be forgiven for thinking tourists have been visiting the winelands for almost as long as they’ve been traipsing up Table Mountain.

You’d be wrong. Wine tourism in South Africa began only in 1971. Thanks to the efforts of three pioneering winemakers – Frans Malan (Simonsig), Niel Joubert (Spier) and Michael “Spatz” Sperling of Delheim – there are now 23 wine routes comprising 452 members. Between them, in 2019 (before the Covid pandemic arrived in 2020) they attracted nearly three million day visitors and contributed R7.2 billion to South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP).

More importantly, the three farmers transformed the SA wine industry and, in so doing, changed the face of Stellenbosch and other Western Cape towns such as Franschhoek and Paarl that followed in their footsteps.

The journey began when Malan and Joubert were driving along Burgundy’s Route des vins in France in 1969. “Why don’t we do something similar back home?” they asked themselves. They enlisted Sperling’s help on their return and the trio quickly became known as the “Three Angry Men with a Cause” while Sperling also acquired the not-so complimentary soubriquet of Dié Blêrrie Duitser (“That Bloody German”).

“It wasn’t so much that we were prohibited from producing under our own labels,” recalls Johan Malan, currently director of wine making and production at Simonsig … one of Frans Malan’s two sons running the business. “When we got our production license in 1968, we were only the fifth estate to do so,” he explains.

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“Wine-drinking was almost unheard of outside the Western Cape and there was no incentive for estates to produce individually. “It was more convenient for them to supply bulk wine to coops and organisations such as KWV that matured, bottled and marketed under their own brand names.”

Over-supply and the influence that KWV was able to exercise as industry regulator in terms of setting pricing meant most wine farmers barely made a living. They thus had little inducement to produce wine of anything more than the minimum standard required by KWV, which was the sole exporter of South African wines.

That influence began to wane, says Johann Malan, when his father and friends helped to form the Cape Estate Wine Producers Association to protect the interests of those estates producing and selling under their own names.

The Stellenbosch Wine Route (SWR) opened with fewer than 20 farms participating. These included the founding three, Muratie, Blaauwklippen, Neethlingshof, Hazendal, Overgaauw, Hartenberg, Rust-en-Vrede, Koopmanskloof and a couple of the smaller co-operative cellars.

The number grew steadily – though not spectacularly – until the demise of apartheid meant doors for South African wines were opened throughout the world. At one stage, SWR membership went up to about 170 estates and co-ops but this has since dropped to just over 100.

There are now five sub-routes within the boundaries of the Stellenbosch Wine of Origin classification, says SWR general manager Elmarie Rabie. These, she says, offer “diverse wine tourism experiences, from all-inclusive luxury wine estates with tasting rooms, restaurants and accommodation to small boutique wineries”.

Research conducted last year by national non-profit organisation Vinpro showed that wine tourism in 2019 contributed nearly a quarter of Stellenbosch’s total wine cellar turnover (this does not include trade retail sales and exports). The research added that, of the members that participated in the study, 94% featured a tasting room and cellar door (the latter for onsite purchases), 45% had a restaurant, 43% boasted conference and event facilities, 34% offered accommodation and 12% had wedding chapels.

Vinpro represents nearly 2 600 South African wine grape producers, cellars and wine-related businesses.

But a significant statistic is by Visit Stellenbosch, the town’s official destination marketing organisation launched in 2019: while there are some 60 “eateries” on farms in the area, there are more than 70 restaurants in the town itself.

Recent years has also seen a burgeoning in the number of accommodation establishments lining the streets of which “outsiders” call the Eikestad (“City of Oak Trees”) but which locals refer to simply as “Stellies” or “The Bosch”. These range from small 5-star hotels that cater mainly for wealthy foreign visitors and upper-echelon businesspeople to more affordable facilities where guests are generally locals.

One of these is Eendracht Hotel (www.eendracht-hotel.com) at the top of historic Dorp Street in the heart of the town. Owner Daniel Lutz told me, quite glumly, that the hotel had just received its fourth grading … and he was wondering whether potential South African visitors would be put off by the perception that this would make the place more expensive.

“My parents developed townhouses on the property behind this but kept this little plot and gave it to me as my ‘inheritance’ because I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” said Lutz over dinner of bobotie and malva pudding in Eendracht’s homely restaurant. “Do something with it, they instructed me.”

A member of Cape Country Routes, Eendracht is a remodelling of one of Stellenbosch’s oldest houses; in fact, it is built on the original foundations and the frontage is completely in keeping with the architecture of its older neighbours. “I suspect the woman who built this place in 1710 was operating some kind of guesthouse.”

When the hotel opened in March 1996, it was the 16th accommodation establishment “of any kind in Stellenbosch”. “Now there are over 400,” says Lutz. Not bad for a town with fewer than 180 000 residents.

Surprisingly for a town that attracts nearly twice that number in visitors every year, Stellenbosch – particularly the town centre and rural environs – has retained a great deal of its 18th century charm. The most glaring difference since I first visited in 1988 is Stellies is no longer predominantly white nor overwhelmingly Afrikaans.

This is partly due to tourism but equally because Stellenbosch University has helped transform the town both racially and linguistically over the past quarter century. It has done so rather elegantly, I noticed when taking a table at DeWarenmarkt the following evening. There were plenty of students around me but by no means could this be called a student jol like Die Akker and Jan Kats of yore.

There was a café vibe, hardly surprising given the country was in the middle of booze-lockdown, but the groups were mixed in terms of gender and race, and everyone seemed content with their Terberdore coffee, Yumminess Belgian waffles, succulent burgers or lamb springrolls. “I love the way Stellenbosch has changed,” said De Warenmarkt partner Daniel Kriel, formerly CEO of Sanlam Private Wealth.