DIVERSITY OF DARLING
While many wine regions try and claim a “speciality” in terms of varietals produced, here in Darling it has been proved that our strength is in our DIVERSITY!
Wines of South Africa, or WOSA, is the marketing and promotional body for SA wines internationally. Every year they host their marketing managers based in other countries, for a Strategy Conference and AGM. This year they identified Darling as a key region to visit and we were delighted to have them here and show them what we have to offer.
All well and good … but we were then told we had to have a theme, as all the other regions had a theme – and this is where it got very interesting, indeed even heated at one stage!
As we pointed out:
- While we certainly make some great blends – we are not JUST blends;
- While we certainly make some great varietals – we are not JUST varietals;
- We do not claim to “own” any varietal as some other regions do;
- Our THEME is our DIVERSITY and our common aim is for our individual wines to “speak for themselves”.
Indeed, if you look at the wines from Darling that have been attracting awards and a lot of attention recently you will find SEASALTER, LIME KILNS, SIR CHARLES DARLING, LADY ANN DARLING, SALT OF THE EARTH, DRIE PAPENFONTEIN, LYNCHPIN, HOMTINI and ROAN RANGER – and the list goes on.
ALL of these wines reflect their uniqueness and that is what makes them so attractive to serious wine people – people order them by NAME and not by the varietals which they may contain.
Darling simply does not do “boxed in” in thought or deed. The last decade especially has seen probably more innovation than the previous 20 years; it is all so exciting.
PS: There was an interesting postscript to our “diversity spat” in that when Tim Atkin MW, also a recent visitor to our area, released his report he listed “The 10 Things you need to Know about South African Wines” and a key paragraph is headed as follows: DIVERSITY IS THE ESSENTIAL SPICE OF LIFE ..
Thank you, Tim – please come back soon – Darling is Diversity.