Most of the Overberg
wine farms could conclude their harvest before lockdown began on Friday 27
March.
Josef Dreyer, winemaker at Raka Wines in the Stanford Valley,
says his farm’s worst fear was that an entire harvest would be spoiled by the
lockdown. “Fortunately we could complete the harvest in full.” He added it was
a good harvest.
In the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, Creation Wines made sure an
entire year’s harvest would not go to waste and the farm put everything into
completing the harvest. Co-owner Carolyn Martin explaineded one of her main
concerns was that there may be a ban on winemaking. “My husband JC Martin
decided he was not going to let a whole harvest go to waste, a whole year’s
work in the vineyards. That would have meant huge losses, impacting on our
ability to trade if we had no product to trade.”
Martin said the quality of the grapes this year had been
exceptional. She explained the work done in the vineyards and the picking of grapes
is part of a wine’s success of.
But, she added, the impact of not being able to trade at all
for five weeks is “dramatic”.
“The government has been incompetent in the way it has dealt
with wine exports — banning them, then lifting the ban, and then banning again.
More than 280 000 people’s jobs are on the line, and exports are possible with
social distancing.”
Dreyer shares this sentiment, and adds that his winery’s second
concern is generating income. “We have bills to pay, and we just procured all
the yeast, barrels, fermentation and stabilisation products for harvest. We
also have to pay wages, but we are not allowed to sell any liquor. Our
customers are also not allowed to trade, and this will have dire economic
effects on our business.”
Braam Gericke, viticulturist and winemaker at Wildekrans in
Bot River, says his farm managed to complete its harvest. “There was so much
red tape around export, though,” he said, “and we didn’t make it in time.”
Gericke said Wildekrans had wine orders, but couldn’t get it to clients due to
lockdown regulations. He said: “There is a huge demand for wine, so we are
trying to get orders via Facebook, and once lockdown is over we will deliver. We
are also relatively small in terms of wine sales compared to other wine farms
in the industry.”
Gericke describes the lockdown period as a terrible and
difficult time.
