Grapes grown on this small vineyard in Oranjezicht, on the outskirts of Cape Town are used by Signal Hill Winery. Picture: Lulama Zenzile/African News Agency (ANA)
A smaller wine crop is expected for 2023, wine organisation Vinpro has warned.
Vinpro, a non-profit company which represents close to 2 600 South African wine producers, said in a statement on Wednesday that in the run-up to the 2023 wine grape harvest, which runs from January to April, the second of four crop estimates by viticulturists and producer cellars indicated a smaller crop than 2022. The estimate is also down from the first one published in December 2022.
“The crop is estimated to be smaller at this early stage, maybe even the fourth smallest crop in 17 years,” it said.
Vinpro is not alone in predicting a smaller grape crop.
The South African Table Grape Industry in December forecast that overall harvest volumes would be 15.1% lower than the figures recorded in the 2021/2022 season.
Conrad Schutte, the manager of the Vinpro team of viticulturists who issue the crop estimate together with industry body SA Wine Industry Information and Systems, said the season was characterised by mostly average cold units and fewer snow deposits on mountain peaks than in previous seasons.
"However, it was still enough to meet the vineyards' cold needs. Winter temperatures were mostly warmer in all the wine-producing regions and rainfall was significantly less except for the Northern Cape," he said.
Vinpro said a warmer spring and dry soil conditions resulted in budding occurring earlier. The evenness of budding was satisfactory, but for certain cultivars such as Chardonnay, budding was uneven in some areas. Flowering occurred earlier than normal in most vineyards and large differences occurred during the set of cultivars.
During the second week of December the season changed notably when downpours brought welcome relief to the mostly hot and dry season. The rain eased pressure on irrigation scheduling since groundwater levels were below normal and growers could not properly apply irrigation scheduling due to load shedding. Along with the rain, there was sporadic hail damage in Paarl, Worcester, and Robertson.
Fungal disease pressure, particularly powdery and downy mildew, was exacerbated by the wet conditions and growers had to adjust spray programmes accordingly. Damage also occurred to roads and other infrastructure.
"The decrease in the estimate is mainly attributed to vineyard uprooting, especially the Northern Cape, Olifants River, and Swartland," Schutte said.
"Furthermore, high disease pressure, especially the resultant powdery mildew infections in the Northern Cape, Olifants River, Swartland, Paarl, Stellenbosch, Cape South Coast, and Cape Town, will negatively impact the crop size. Heat peaks in December and January also caused sunburn, especially in the Swartland, Worcester, and Breedekloof. Across all regions, mainly the intensively irrigated areas, the lack of electricity needed for irrigation pumps to work will further negatively impact the crop size."
However, wine grape production in the Klein Karoo is estimated to be higher than the 2022 season thanks to young vineyards coming into production, and promising water levels.
Vinpro said the next crop estimate by viticulturists and producer cellars would be released in the third week of February.
Meanwhile, the South African Table Grape Industry released its second crop estimate for the 2022/2023 table grape season, saying the industry expects 2022/2023 volumes inspected for export to decrease by approximately 8.1% compared with the figures quoted in the first crop estimate published on 31 October 2022.
The revised crop estimate anticipates that approximately 66 million cartons (4.5kg equivalent) would be inspected for export, with the upper limit projected at 103% and the lower limit projected at 97% of this figure.
Export volumes were expected to align very closely with South Africa’s five-year average, which should result in export markets receiving sufficient volumes of good quality grapes from the country, it said.
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