SA to have smallest wine harvest in a decade due to drought
SA, the world’s seventh biggest wine producer, is expected to see the smallest harvest in more than a decade in 2018 after drought and lower plantings hit yields, industry experts have said. The winelands are mostly in the coastal Western Cape province which was declared a disaster area in May due to a severe drought that has dried up dams and led to water restrictions for residents and industry. The 2018 harvest is expected to be much smaller than the estimated 1,434,328 tonnes produced in the 2017 crop, based on a survey conducted in the last week of November by industry body South African Wine Industry Information and Systems (Sawis). Sawis, which will give its final crop estimate in August, did not give a figure for 2018 but said it would likely be less than in 2017. "If, in certain areas, we don’t get rain, it could end up smaller," Sawis CEO Yvette van der Merwe told Reuters. VinPro, an industry body, expects the 2018 crop to be the smallest since 2005, when about 1,157,631 to...
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