As South Africa Lifts Ban on Wine Sales, Many Vintners Fear It’s Too Late

JOHANNESBURG—South Africa’s $1.five billion wine industry is reeling soon after a series of pandemic-induced shocks, such as successive bans on the sale of alcoholic beverages totaling some 14 months.

The country’s Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons have develop into family staples world-large, and wineries centered in the rolling farmlands all over the Western Cape are between South Africa’s most profitable and valuable industries. As alcoholic beverages product sales resumed nationwide this 7 days, quite a few of these companies have emerged battered, and some may possibly not survive.

The wine industry in South Africa—the world’s eighth major producer and exporter—employs about 290,000 persons, whilst the broader liquor industry accounts for about 1 million work. Liquor product sales and taxes commonly account for about three% of South Africa’s $351 billion economy and 10% of its overall tax earnings, in accordance to the South African Liquor Brand name House owners Affiliation, which represents suppliers and distributors in the liquor industry.

But the measures taken by the ruling African Nationwide Congress government to halt the spread of the coronavirus have dealt twin blows: two bans on booze sales—along with shorter bans on wine exports—and the closing of South Africa’s borders, since the wine industry’s earnings is carefully intertwined with tourism.

Wines of South Africa, an industry group that promotes the nation’s wines in intercontinental markets, estimates the industry has shed in surplus of 7 billion South African rand ($406 million) in earnings and about 21,000 work. VinPro, an industry group that represents South African wine producers, cellars and stakeholders, expects more than eighty wineries and 350 wine-grape producers to go out of company.