Many European countries (including Sweden) drink and appreciate South African wines. It has been that way ever since Sweden and other countries started importing the wines again after the fall of the apartheid regime in the early 1990s. The USA, albeit with an extensive wine import, has not at all discovered the charm of the wines from South Africa. Why is that?
It cannot only be because the country is far away, and few Americans have been there. Australia is also far away, but its wines are known. At the same time, South Africa’s are entirely unknown. South Africa has the smallest volume share of imported wine to the US at less than half a per cent, according to data from the IWSR Drinks Market Analysis from 2022. This is significantly lower than other major non-European wine countries. The next smallest volume share is Argentina, with four per cent.
Perhaps it is because South Africa lacks a locomotive, a well-known producer with the resources to market itself in the United States. And who can thus pull others into the limelight.
But American importers and sommeliers with great enthusiasm for South African wines are doing their best. And as more famous regions, for instance Burgundy, are getting increasingly expensive, they are looking for alternatives, and why not a South African chenin blanc?
Read more: sevenfifty
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