South Africa: Late wine grape harvest serves up 1.4m tonnes

Industry organisation South African Wine Industry Information and Systems says the 2021 wine grape crop totalled about 1.46-million tonnes, which was an 8.9% increase on the 2020 harvest. Industry body Vinpro consultation service manager Conrad Schutte adds that this year saw a much later wine grape season in South Africa and that moderate weather resulted in grapes ripening more slowly, while developing exceptional colour and flavour. The harvest kicked off about two weeks later than normal owing to unusually cool weather conditions throughout the season, which persisted throughout harvest time and resulted in some wine grape producers harvesting their last grapes in May. Schutte mentions that these are general observations and that the wine industry’s diversity across ten wine grape growing regions should be taken into account. He adds that the overall cooler weather enabled producers to harvest their grapes at exactly the right time, and viticulturists and winemakers are ...