Drought sours wine prospects

IF you drink a glass of wine tonight, savour it.

The last two weeks of searing heat, the extended drought and the widespread fires in the Western Cape mean farmers are experiencing enormous losses which could result in a shortage of wine over the next two years and price rises.

The conditions are devastating both the yield and the quality of the grape harvest.

Winelands viticulturist Rosa Kruger said this year was the worst she had seen.

“The heat is too much. It has been non-stop 35°C to 40°C since December,” she said.

“Everybody I know is down on production.”

Not only is the yield down – with some farmers expecting to pick only 5% of what they normally would – but the quality will be affected as acid levels fall and the PH rises, affecting the flavour of the wine.

And even where crops were looking good, in Elgin and Stellenbosch, smoke from the fires had tainted the grapes, Kruger said.

Not only was this year’s crop damaged, but the crop for next year had also been compromised.

“The vines are severely stressed and won’t recover by next year. Predictions are gloomy,” she said.

Malmesbury Municipality’s Louis Zickmann said that in the Swartland, it was normally extremely hot for a day or two at this time of the year.

“But it has been close to two weeks that we’ve had near 40°C or above,” he said.

Billy Hughes, of The Hughes Family Wines, said farms with access to irrigation were down by about 20%, the drylands were down by 60%, and, in his case, “we are very down”.

“We are only harvesting 20% of what we normally would,” he said.

But Wilhelm de Vries, of Allesverloren Estate Wine in Riebeek Wes, who started harvesting last week, said the heat could be good for the quality of the grapes.

The berries were small and because the ratio between the skin and juice was small, the flavour could be good.

But they were down 25% on chardonnay.

“On the drylands, we’re more than 50% down,” De Vries said.

“Hopefully, the irrigation blocks won’t be so bad.”

Growers said that while the country had red wine stocks from last year, that was not the case with white wine.

A shortage of wine would cause the prices to go up, they said.