The wine industry says that millions of litres of wine currently in storage, needs to be sold by January.
The ban on the sale and export of alcohol during lockdown has left the industry in dire straits.
And, winemakers are now over-stocked, and need to get rid of millions of litres before the new harvest in January next year.
Under level 1, the sale of alcohol is allowed during the week at specific times.
However, the sale of alcohol is prohibited over weekends, which makes it hard for wine cellars to sell alcohol to visitors.
The industry wants government to open up the sale of alcohol to include weekends.
But there’s been no response from Government to that request.
Wines of South Africa spokesperson, Maryna Calow says the wine can be repurposed to be of benefit to consumers, but it’ll come at a cost that most winemakers can’t afford.
” One of the ways we have identified is to convert the wine into juice concentrate, which has proven to be the good avenue, as well create hand sanitizer . However the he reality is that all these alternatives products fetch lower prices than selling the original as wine”
