As we celebrate three decades of wine.co.za today, 28 August 2026, looking back reminds us that our story has always been about leveraging technology to connect people with South African wine. From our humble beginnings in 1996 as a digital pioneer to becoming the industry’s trusted source of truth, we have continuously evolved to serve wineries, trade buyers, and wine lovers alike.
Long before cloud databases were standard, we began building a centralised digital repository for the South African wine industry. Today, this archive houses over 45 000 historical wine profiles, vintage records, and award results. It remains an indispensable, free reference tool for international buyers, sommeliers, and journalists worldwide.
Some incredible numbers to celebrate
- 900+ Wineries listed on wine.co.za
- 45 000+ Wines (full technical wine fact sheets), some going back 30 vintages!
- 4 600+ Winery contacts
- 670+ Tourism listings
- 41 000+ News articles
- 44 000+ News mailers sent out monthly – resulting in over 5m emails arriving in inboxes for the last 10 years!
- 48 000+ Classified ads
- 2 500+ Photo albums
- 3 100+ Videos
- 540 days of YouTube channel views = 13 000 hours = 420 000+ views!
- 1 million+ pages served monthly – which means that just in the last 10 years we have served over 5 million pages of trustworthy South African wine content with nearly 50% of our content read being News and Wine info!
- 22% are wine fact sheets
- 23% are wine news stories
Our reach and numbers reflect 30 years of hard work, but we are most proud of our resilience. Navigating economic slumps, a global pandemic, a failed acquisition, and declining global wine consumption taught us the ultimate business lesson: stay alert, flexible, and lean.
Beyond the stats, what matters most are the human connections; viz our loyal, connected team and the long-standing relationships across the winelands. Using our platform to make a meaningful difference, whether through our #wineforgood features, our DTC Academy, or supporting organisations like PYDA and Pebbles Project remains the true heart of wine.co.za.
Three decades of winelands photo shenanigans
I have attended hundreds of tastings, award functions and launches and taken thousands of photographs of the amazing people and places. The result is three decades of documented winelands celebrations, dancing winemakers and behind-the-scenes fun. I think the only person who has taken more pics than me is the legendary John Ford.
What an incredible privilege to work in the South African wine industry – one of the most beautiful winelands in the world.
Legendary team feeds and birthday bashes
Work at wine.co.za has always been fueled by great food and celebration. Driven by my alter-ego as "Chief Food Organiser" (CFO), three decades of work days were routinely broken up by office feasts, home-cooked team lunches, and legendary milestone birthday parties, from the 21st and 25th to the big 30th.
Our wine.co.za team
At the heart of our 30-year journey is a remarkably loyal team. Four of our team members have been with wine.co.za for 20 years, and another for 19, proof that once you become part of the family, you stay for the long haul. Between us we have 144 years of experience in the wine industry. Of course, we never miss an opportunity to toast our milestones! We love a good lunch and a glass of bubbly, and last year’s festive team trip on the Franschhoek Wine Tram was a fantastic day of connecting, celebrating, and exploring the Franschhoek Valley together.
The team at Atlas Swift during our Xmas 2025 party on the Franschhoek Wine Tram: Kevin, Anri, Adele, Judy, Garth, Michelle, Jeanine and Suheena.
Quick top 5s
Our top 5 news articles ever
Looking at our list of top 5 most-read news article ever, it's clear that wine tourism, innovation, and online wine sales are of interest to our readers:
- The best child-friendly wine farms near Cape Town
- Beyond the bottle: Stellenbosch scientist launches world-first instant wine sachet (Our latest April Fools story really hit the wires!)
- Liquor licences for online wine sales
- Top 100 SA Wines 2012 results
- Top dog-friendly wine farms in the Western Cape
Our top 5 viewed wineries
Here are the top 5 most-viewed wineries on wine.co.za over the last 12 months:
- Spier Wine Farm
- Nederburg Wines
- Babylonstoren
- Perdeberg Wines
- Kleine Zalze Wines (Who also celebrates 30 years this month. Congrats to all at Kleine Zalze!)
Win Tokens with your best memories of wine.co.za
To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we thought it only fitting to look back on some of our top moments at wine.co.za, and we want to hear yours!
Share your favourite memory with us on social media to stand a chance to WIN 10 Tokens (valued at R8 500). Every week for the next 3 weeks, we will choose a winner.
Simply follow us on Facebook or Instagram, and post your favourite memory in the comments of our birthday post. Tokens give wineries and wine businesses complete flexibility to share press updates, showcase events, and highlight tourism offerings directly to our audience of over 200 000 monthly readers.
30 years of connection
We would sincerely like to thank everyone who has had a hand in our journey to 2026. We would not be where we are without the support of our many friends, our clients, the industry, and, of course, our wonderful team. A HUGE thank you to all!
For more on our history, click HERE. To read all the reminiscences, keep an eye on our 30th Birthday Spotlight.