Europe remains South Africa’s largest wine export market, with excellent growth in both volume and value being reported in the U K specif ic a lly.According to Maryna Calow, communications manager for Wines of South Africa (Wosa), it is a market that will continue to be important to local producers who are still optimistic of further growth in this traditional market. South Africa is hoping to see wine export volumes this year reach pre-Covid levels as producers aim to break through the 400-million-litre barrier.“By all accounts, the harvest is looking good in terms of both quality and volumes and we remain positive that recovery is a viable prospect in 2022,” said Ca low.According to Vinpro, wine grape producers are expecting a smaller wine grape crop, mainly due to a decrease in vineyards, high disease pressure, and heatwaves in certain regions.The harvest is estimated to be smaller in most wine grape growing regions, except for Stellenbosch, the Cape South Coast, and Klein Karoo. The overall decline in the 2022 wine grape crop is due to vineyards being uprooted, especially in the Northern Cape, Olifants River and Robertson regions. Another contributing factor has been the high downy mildew and powdery mildew infections in some of these regions. The ripening period was cooler than normal, but heatwaves in December and January caught some vineyards off guard, causing sunburn damage to grapes.According to Calow, the wine industry is currently in a phase of recovering and rebuilding, but this will take time. “The wine industry is a long-term investment industry. Due to the economic situation and the inf luence of the pandemic on the industry, we have not seen the levels of investment we would hope to see. We have also seen a decline in vineyards due to uprooting of vines to investment in other crops.”
