South African wine industry resilient, adopting tools to be more sustainable, competitive

The South African wine industry was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and will take a few years to fully recover, but wine businesses are changing the way they do business and the industry has fast-tracked tools aimed at becoming more robust, adaptable, competitive and sustainable, wine industry organisation Vinpro says. Wine businesses have endured. The industry has managed to reduce the uncontracted wine stock from 200-million litres at the end of 2020 to 60-million litres at end 2021, in part by allocating wine grapes to grape juice concentrate. This, along with a smaller wine grape crop, may relieve downward price pressure. Wine export volumes and value have also shown good growth in 2021, particularly in traditional markets such as the UK, while diversifying into the US, China and Africa. “While we commend our producers and cellars for their resilience and tenacity, without innovation we cannot move forward. The wine industry has a clear growth path towards 2025 in the Wine ...