The South African wine (and fruit) growing industry is struggling to improve its reputation since it moved away from the ‘dop system’, where part of the wage payment was in kind (read: alcohol) which led to widespread alcohol addiction amongst farm workers and foetal alcohol syndrome in many of their babies. The winemakers are cleaning up their act and the minimum wage has recently been increased, but if labour conditions are close to your heart, you might want to look out for Fairtrade and organically labelled wines. There are more and more wine farms going that route.