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South Africa overtakes France
February 24, 2010
Lucy Shaw
For the first time, the British are drinking more South African wine than French, the latest figures show.
Sales of South African wine grew 20% by volume to 12.27m cases in the 12-month period ending 23 January this year, according to AC Nielsen.
This is compared to a 12% decline in French wine sales to 12.26m cases.
South Africa is now fourth in wine by volume sales in the UK, behind Australia, California and Italy.
'In 1994 our producers wouldn't have dreamt of selling more wine to the UK than France', said Jo Mason, UK market manager for Wines of South Africa.
'The wine landscape has changed completely and the quality of wine from South Africa is up there with the best in the world.'
In 2009, global exports of South African wine reached nearly 400m litres.
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To post your comment on this story, email us at news@decanter.com
 Just because SA volumes are higher than French, doesn't mean that the quality is 'up there with the best in the world' – what it means is that supermarket buyers are sourcing more wine from SA because the rand is relatively cheap compared to almost all other currencies and especially the euro. The average unit price of SA wine is way behind France and the value of SA wine sold in the UK is too
Decanter should consider that Australia and USA have greater volume and value wine sales than France (while Italy and SA have higher volume sales) and adjust its hugely disproportionate French-biased editorial accordingly. James Craig-Wood, united wineries
Congratulations, Decanter, on getting this story around the world. I have
come across it on a number of other news feeds. But I suspect a correction
is necessary as the figures appear to concern supermarket purchases only.
Official import data for the entire market, including bars, hotels and
restaurants, gives a different story, with France running 40% ahead of
South Africa in 2009 in terms of still wines. Hugo Rose MW
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