The rolling hills of Stellenbosch have been growing grapes for more than 300 years.
South Africa is one of those wine-producing countries that happily straddles the line between Old World and New.
With a wine-producing history going back 363 years, it can hardly be considered new, but its course over those years has been hindered and hampered by various political instabilities, inequalities and infighting.
The past 20 years, however, have finally given South African wine a chance to explore its identity as a bright industry with Old World experience and New World edge. Driven by a small but passionate group of people, South African wines have found their wings and, as our search data shows, are taking off.
There were 18,000 searches for South African wine in the UK, which made up 1.9 percent of all wine searched for in April 2018. Fast-forward to April 2022 and there were 26,000 searches for South African wine in the UK making up 2.1 percent of all wines searched for.
On a global scale, it’s even more impressive; back in April 2018, South Africa accounted for 0.9 percent of all worldwide searches – roughly 118,000. Since then, it has climbed to 182,000 searches and now makes up 1.1 percent of all wine searches worldwide.
In a chat with Maryna Calow, communications manager for Wines of South Africa (WOSA), she outlined the industry’s fierce fight for the recognition they believe their wines deserve.
Who are Wines of South Africa?
We are the export marketing council for the South African wine industry. So we basically represent all wine producers who export, which is pretty much all of them, to varying degrees – we are the international mouthpiece of our industry. Trying to make things as fair and even for all of our producers to participate in and get some kind of international footing.
We are industry funded – we're not government funded – but we are government recognized and they collect statutory levies on the exports that come towards our funding. So for every litre of wine that gets exported, whether in bulk or package format, there's a few cents that gets collected and shared with us to basically do marketing efforts around the world. Saying that we only work in key focus markets simply because the funding is very, very limited.
Our government funding is very limited. So everything we need to do has to be very focused, very strategic. Our producers have to pay for everything, it's a very short shoestring.
It does present a challenge, but what it also does is it makes you think a little bit more creatively. Try and compete with our international counterparts – who do have massive budgets that they can play with – on the same playing field.
Where are your key markets and how do they operate?
We only operate in key focus markets, which are Canada, the USA, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, the UK – which is our biggest export market. Asia, as a market, is really mainland China, Hong Kong and Japan. Then Africa as a continent, we only focus on key countries within the African continent.
We export about 50 percent of all our wine. In total, Europe – including the UK – takes about 50 percent of all our exports – it is a very big and very important market for us. We're still very small players in the USA.
Merlot and the other Bordeaux varieties are important grapes for the South African industry.
Africa is a really exciting market for us, we are fellow Africans and we do see a lot of support there. It's not a traditional wine drinking market – it has never been – although wine has been present in key markets for quite some time having had links to France and Portugal.
East Africa – Kenya, Tanzania – they've been great. Mozambique – just across the border – has always been a nice market for us, we see a lot of excitement around wine in the ZimZam border where the Victoria Falls are, there's a lot of tourism in that area and South African wine does well.
Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria – starting to move over to West Africa – are also very, very strong markets for us, as well as Angola. Closer to our borders, Namibia and Botswana – they've all been very good supporters of South African wine.
I think one thing to remember is a lot of those countries are Muslim, so it's not a big thing. Even Kenya and Tanzania, they've got massive Muslim populations – so that's not going to open itself up to wine quite so naturally.
In South Africa, if you look at our consumption stats, it's only 8 percent of South Africans drink wine. We're traditionally a beer and spirits drinking nation, about 80 percent of our consumption is beer.
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