This chapter provides a detailed analysis of efforts on the part of the main players in the wine industry to simultaneously embrace black economic empowerment, economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability. It notes that while this ironically led to the spinning of a new web of certification, with associated costs, the overall consequences were favourable. The cooperative sector underwent the greatest upheaval, while the number of producing wholesalers increased greatly. There was also a marked increase in the number of private cellars, before falling off again after 2008. The reinvention of Cape was also reflected in the introduction of many new cultivars and marked improvements in quality. The most obvious success lay in a quadrupling of exports by volume in the decade after 1997, which absorbed the wine surplus in a context where domestic sales remained sluggish. The chapter ends with a comparison of different types of empowerment deal and an asssessment of how far the industry has been able to deracialise itself at the level of production, distribution and consumption.

This chapter assesses the record of the KWV under C.W.H. Kohler in the performance of its initial mandate. It addresses minimum pricing, experimentation with innovative ways of disposing of the surplus, efforts to build exports and measures taken to improve quality. A partial return to preferential duties during the Great Depression ironically created more favourable conditions for maximising exports to Britain and the empire. While self-styled quality producers exported wine, the KWV developed a line in fortified wines. The role of A.I. Perold and Frank W. Myburgh in promoting a quality agenda at the KWV is explored. The chapter briefly relates the tale of a tour of France by Myburgh, Andre Simon and Manie Malan in 1932 that captures the optimism of the time. The chapter concludes with a salutary tale of a return to overproduction and low prices at the end of the decade. Although the KWV, which was internally divided, was blamed for a return to crisis conditions, the Wine Commission of 1937 backed away from advocating the return to the status quo ante. Hence, the government of Jan Smuts agreed to the extension of KWV regulatory powers to cover drinking wine in 1940.

Chapter 4 traces how South Africa’s position on the NPT evolved during the transition from P. W. Botha to F. W. de Klerk. My concentrated attention here lies on the role played by the South African DFA because the department’s officials were intimately involved in setting up these multilateral talks and, more crucially, were at the forefront of advocating the South African strategy on the NPT internationally. The ensuing discussion reconstructs events chronologically, bringing together the views of the South African, British, American and Soviet officials who dealt with the issue.

The introduction sets out the main themes and provides a historical background to the core of the book. There is, firstly, a discussion of how the planting of the vine was shaped by larger imperial dynamics under the Dutch East India Company and subsequently under British rule. It addresses the transition from slavery to a form of labour that was nominally free. Secondly, there is an analysis of the relative importance of the domestic and imperial markets and the manner in which British duties shaped the Cape wine industry. And thirdly, the chapter provides an account of the increased importance of wine science concerned with managing the fermentation process and dealing with diseases. The phylloxera crisis is shown to be a turning point, not least with respect to South Africa’s engagement with international scientific opinion. The career of A.I. Perold unfolds as part of that story. The chapter concludes by identifying some of the challenges that were faced during the research and how the project evolved to take account of what was possible. The introduction alludes to work that deploys Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of fields, and justifies its decision not to go down that route.

This chapter deals with the tension between the need for producers to stay ahead of the competition whilst finding ways of cooperating. It begins with an account of the belated appropriation of the concept of terroir, which has been assisted by the flexibility of the Wine of Origin (WO) system. The chapter compares the very different approach to terroir in the Swartland, Stellenbosch and the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, and the quite distinct ways in which producers have sought to come together to market it. The discussion then turns to strategies to develop wine brands in a context where producers, whose farms are typically small, need to source grapes from further afield. Under the WO system, it is possible to play to the distinct terroir of where the farm is located, which is reflected in the branding, while creating second and third labels for wines made from grapes with a different origin. Hence the premium associated with quality is augmented by the volume that buying in grapes permits, thereby contributing to overall profitability. A brief discussion of black wine brands follows. The final section addresses a range of issues relating to competition and cooperation. There is a discussion of sensitivity to scoring within wine guides and wine competitions and how this influences marketing. A contrast is made between the collapse of the Cape Estate Wine Producers Association (CEWPA) and the success of cultivar-specific associations and the proliferation of wine routes.

This chapter addresses challenges to the KWV system as the overall surplus spiralled in the 1980s and cooperatives began offloading cheap wine onto the market in minimalist packaging. Independent producers and the SFW became increasingly critical of the KWV’s performance of its regulatory functions. The chapter provides an account of Tim Hamilton-Russell’s dogged campaign for the right to produce wine in the Hemel-en-Aarde and to market it as he saw fit. It also addresses the vine-smuggling scandal that broke in 1986, which culminated in the loosening of quarantine controls. The chapter then details how the end of white rule led to government scrutiny of the KWV. After a bitter struggle over the demands of the KWV to hold onto its assets as it converted to a private company, a political deal was struck that enabled part of them be reycled in support of a black empowerment agenda in the industry. The residual control functions were taken over by a set of new bodies. The chapter closes with a brief account of the arrival of international drinks companies and the full merger between Distillers and SFW to create Distell, in an effort to ward off potentially hostile competition.

Chapter 6 bridges the gap between the apartheid years and the post-apartheid majority government under ANC rule. Following the signature of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the saga of South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme was far from over, as the government still had to conclude a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). I illuminate how the nuclear sector inherited from the apartheid era was scaled down under the first democratic government. In addition, yet another leftover from the apartheid past continued to make headlines well into the second decade of the new millennium: the highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the hands of the South Africans remained an irritating issue from an US non-proliferation policy point of view. By looking at the government’s nuclear policies under ANC majority rule, I reveal that the Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma administrations were not receptive to US incentives to sell South Africa’s remaining HEU to Washington. However, from the US State Department’s perspective, this could have decreased the danger of proliferation.

The chapter begins with a paradox, namely that the liquor laws were liberalised in the early 1960s at precisely the moment when the apartheid regime was becoming distinctly illiberal. It argues that part of the reason was that the temperance movement had failed to reproduce itself generationally while its influence on the National Party government was marginal. Moreover, Afrikaner nationalists hitched wine to the bandwaggon of cultural nationalism. Successive commissions of enquiry targeted excessive drinking amongst the Coloured population, but attempts to extend the reach of racialised prohibition stalled. Indeed, the racial provisions of the 1928 Liquor Act were repealed in 1962, following the Malan Commission which maintained that the law was being routinely flouted. After a heated parliamentary debate the law was amended such that that wine could be purchased by all South Africans. Moreover, the distribution became freer with the creation of grocers’ licences for wine and promises of intervention to reverse vertical integration in the liquor industry. This outcome signalled a defeat for temperance interests and pointed to the greater influence wielded by the wine lobby.