Here’s an extraordinary statistic about South African wine for you, though it might not appear so at first. In 2022, local consumption of wine was 453 429 126 litres. It just seems like a big number, really, except when you look at the numbers for previous years. Not only is the 2022 figure more than back to what it was before the Covid-ban blip, it’s the highest ever. Ever. Something worth noting by the doom-and-gloom people, and certainly interesting.
More remarkable still, we’re in a world and time where, just about everywhere, wine consumption has been decreasing at a regular rate since 2018. In Europe, which accounts for nearly half of the world’s wine consumption, the 2022 (estimated) volume is down by about 2% on the previous year. Consumption in most countries decreased – just half a dozen other major countries saw increases, led by Portugal.
South Africa’s percentage increase over 2021 was the highest, but of course the liquor bans in 2020 and 2021 led to significantly less drinking, so in itself that spectacular year-on-year increase is not surprising.
Not that those who are keen to see more wine consumption by South Africans are going to be satisfied.
Per capita and per adult (15 years by international convention) consumption here is still low by international standards. While the per adult annual consumption of wine also bounced back to pre-Covid levels, at 9.82 litres it’s pretty much average for most of this century since 2002, when it started dropping significantly (it was 11.2 litres in that year). The 2020 local figure of 7.4 litres per adult (low because of liquor bans) compares just fine with Brazil at 2.6, but the USA was 12.2, Australia like most of Europe in the high 20s – France and Italy nearly 50 litres, but Portugal tops at 51.9.
So the pushers of wine will see that they have a way to go, even if they’ll be happy with the direction in which things have generally been moving. It’s worth noting that the increase in local consumption is inevitably at the bottom end – I’ll perhaps come back at some future date to look at what South African’s are actually drinking.
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