South Africa's wine industry reels from alcohol bans

TANYA STEENKAMPDrinkers in South Africa may cheer the government's decision to lift the latest bar on alcohol sales, but the wine sector fears the move has come too late to save thousands of jobs.The key industry has been badly hit by a string of booze bans, imposed to ease the number of trauma cases in hospitals burdened by coronavirus patients.The third such restriction, imposed on December 28 as South Africa struggled with a second Covid-19 wave, was lifted on Monday."Wine businesses have not been able to earn any income from local wine sales for a total of 20 weeks since March 2020," said Rico Basson, head of Vin Pro, representing 2 500 producers and other stakeholders in the wine industry.The sector has now lost more than eight billion rand (US$530 million) in direct sales, threatening the livelihoods of 27 000 people, he said in a statement."While we are glad that businesses can once again earn much-needed revenue, a long and difficult road to recovery lies ahead for wine-related businesses," he said.The slowdown in wine consumption has left many producers with a storage headache.The country is awash with more than 300 million litres of surplus wine at a time when workers are already in the fields to pick the current harvest.Capacity Many vineyards lack the space for the grapes or the money to harvest, bottle and label for the 2021 season."Most sellers don't have lots of space capacity in terms of tanks and with the harvest starting now those tanks need to be ready to receive the 2021 harvest," said Gerard Holden, owner of Holden Manz wine.Many wine producers are struggling financially and some are in a fragile mental state, he said.The wine industry employs 269 000 people and contributes nearly 55 billion rand to the country's economy, especially in the Western Cape province, according to Vin ProAccording to Maryna Calow, communications manager for Wines of South Africa, the surplus will lead to a price slump as desperate producers offload stock.Over the next six to 18 months, up to 80 wine cellars and 350 primary producers will close, she fears."We're going to see a bunch of our wineries not necessarily closing their doors but selling on, to either international investors or selling to a larger organisation," she predicted. - Nampa/AFP

South Africa's wine industry reels from alcohol bans

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