OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday
THIS year’s South African wine harvest is set to be the smallest in more than a decade, even though exports have soared, particularly to the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia, say industry sources.
The South African Wine Industry and Information Services (SAWIS) predicted that the harvest would, due to cool weather in November and December over the wine-producing Western Cape province, yield some nine percent less wine than in 2000, about 767m litres.
But they said the drop would be unlikely to affect domestic and export sales, with winemakers expecting to sell some 550m litres of “good wines” compared with 526m in 2000.
“The harvest is lower in the bulk wine areas, but in fact the quantities in the good wine areas are up, so we do not expect this to affect exports at all,” confirmed Su Birch of the export promotion body Wines of South Africa.
She said exports of bottled wines had soared by 13% last year to 92.2m litres compared with 81m in 1999.
Wines of South Africa said the growth in demand for red wines was steeper, increasing by 15% between January and December last year, while white wine exports were up by 12%.
Birch said the export figures proved that South African winemakers were faring well internationally in the face of “aggressive competition from other New World [non-European] producers.”
Birch said sales to the Netherlands rose by 32% in 2000 and those to Germany increased by 31%.
“Scandinavia, which is a relatively new market, is proving most receptive to Cape wines … bottled sales grew (by) 17% last year.”
Britain remains the biggest export market for South African wines, she added, saying it accounted for 40% of the country’s wines sold abroad. – AFP
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