South Africa is in danger of sliding off the list of the world’s top 10 wine-making countries as it runs out of vineyard space, and needs to focus on niche markets instead, a wine industry expert said on Tuesday.
”We are ranked ninth in the world, by volume,” said Su Birch, Wines of South Africa’s chief executive, speaking at the showcase Cape Wine 2006 conference being held in Cape Town.
”We are going to slide out of the top ten in the next two to five years. We are going to be a small player and … we will have to compete at the top-end of the market and sell premium wines,” she said.
The Cape wine lands are South Africa’s wine-producing heartland and about 834-million litres of wine are made here annually, including top-quality sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and local pinotage cultivars.
But the region does not have space for more vineyards, first planted here by 17th-century French Huguenots, and it is being overtaken by new producers like Bulgaria and China which are planting on a massive scale.
”Our capacity to grow is limited to 160 000 hectares of land but a country like Spain, for instance, has 1,3-million hectares that it can grow its vineyards on,” Birch told Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of the wine conference.
With South Africa’s wine industry valued at R14-billion, Birch told conference delegates that South Africa should find niche markets for its products.
”South Africa will remain a niche player in the world market,” she said.
South Africa has limited its capacity to plant more vineyards because it wanted to preserve the unique Cape Floral Kingdom which consists of indigenous fynbos (shrubbery) as a critical ecosystem.
At least 33 wine producers have already signed up for the conservation initiative, Birch said. — Sapa-AFP