Media Statement (adapted)
Much more than the frustration in the market place of wine lovers struggling to get their hands on a bottle wine or than guests visiting the Boland being disappointed because wine tasting at an expensive cellar restaurant is also prohibited, farmers, workers and towns are suffering as a result of a draconic measure prohibiting the sale and transport of wine.
A total ban on alcohol is the dullest instrument the government possibly could have used with which to carry out a delicate operation. In the meantime hundreds of wine farms and dozens of towns are bleeding to death, job opportunities are lost and one of South Africa’s oldest agricultural industries is on the verge of collapsing.
Wine is an agricultural product and wine and food go together, that is why one can purchase it from the shelves of supermarkets (unlike other alcohol). Hundreds of wine farmers are staring financial ruin in the face. Even if the industry is soon freed from its shackles, the damage is irreparable.
Tanks and barrels in cellars are full and there isn’t any room for the harvest of 2021. Farmers aren’t getting delivery quotas and harvest time has begun. You cannot close a farm for a year – especially not after it was closed the previous year.
A worker on a wine farm told us that he would rather die from COVID-19 than from hunger and sorrow; but death is death!
Photo by Jeff Siepman on Unsplash
Relevant pages on AgribookDigital include (1) Wine and wine grapes, and (2) Craft brewing.
