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The South African Wine Industry

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The Palgrave Handbook of Wine Industry Economics

Abstract

Modern South Africa is a product of its history and geography: the strategic location of the Cape Colony on the sea route to the east, the great mineral discoveries, and the greed that went with attempts to control the flow of profits from the mining sector and the protection that farmers received from the large, landlocked market in Johannesburg were the impetus for economic development of the country. The wine industry forms an integral part of this history right from the beginning. In this chapter, the consequences of these origins for the structure of the modern industry are analyzed in some depth in order to illuminate pertinent aspects of the future of the industry. In this regard, industry dependence on a benign government in the absence of meaningful transformation has the potential to divert attention from the industry’s first aim, namely, to convince the rising black middle class of the benefits of drinking wine.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The total settler and slave population of the Cape remained lower than 1000 people through to around 1720, while the average number of sailors and soldiers aboard ships in the Cape Town harbor numbered more than 6000 per year, hence an export market (Boshoff and Fourie 2010).

  2. 2.

    Katzen quotes from Boxer (2001). This is a translation (originally published in 1959) of a Portuguese publication by Bernardo Gomes de Bruto on famous Portuguese shipwreck stories.

  3. 3.

    ‘Ko-operatieweWynboukundigeunie van Suid-Afrika’ (later the ‘Ko-öperatieveWijnbouwersVereniging van Zuid-Afrika, Beperkt’ KWV, or Cooperative Wine Farmers’ Association of South Africa, Limited).

  4. 4.

    The industry body that represents their interests is the South African Liquor Brand Owners Association (SALBA), earlier known as the Cape Wine and Spirit Institute (CWSI).

  5. 5.

    The author of this chapter was an independent member of this Committee.

  6. 6.

    At a time when the exchange rate was in the order of $1 = ZAR4.50 – R4.70, that is, around $40 million.

  7. 7.

    Note that the process started a decade before the first democratic elections in 1994.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Nick Vink

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  1. Nick Vink
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Correspondence to Nick Vink .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bordeaux Sciences Agro University of Bordeaux, Gradignan, France

    Adeline Alonso Ugaglia

  2. University of Bordeaux, Pessac, France

    Jean-Marie Cardebat

  3. University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Alessandro Corsi

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Vink, N. (2019). The South African Wine Industry. In: Alonso Ugaglia, A., Cardebat, JM., Corsi, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Wine Industry Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98633-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98633-3_9

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