One of the blogs I read regularly is that of Jamie Goode because of his interest in South African wines. In this post he noted the increase of South Africa’s biggest wine export destination, the UK. Jamie sumarised the report as follows:

South African wines acheived the largest increase in UK market share in 2009 (10.4% of market to 12.3%, off-trade by volume)

South African category grew by 24% in value and 23% in volume for the same period

South Africa’s market share is only 0.1% behind France which is in decline

Exports to the UK were up 14% by volume, maintaining the UK’s position as the leading export market for the South African wine industry accounting for 32% of total global exports

Success from South Africa’s top brands helped to drive the category: First Cape, Kumala, Arniston Bay and KWV all grew significantly

There was an uplift of 15% by value above 5 pounds, a 27% increase above 7 pounds and a 43% increase above 10 pounds   

On the Wines of South Africa website, CEO Su Birch makes the observation that there had been a year on year global increase of 7% for South African packaged wine exports in 2009 compared with a drop of bulk sales of 18% . This is seen as positive trend and could an important stage in the evolution of the South African wine industry.

Wine corks

Strong growth in packaged South African wine exports last year were to Sweden (18%) and Canada (11%) as well as to Japan, Nigeria, Angola and China. The Netherlands, US and German markets had remained unchanged but Denmark had shown a decline of 5% which was partially offset by increased exports to Finland and Norway.