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In today's blog we take a look at South African wine exports as a percentage of total wine exports across the world. And as readers will see, while South Africa has some excellent wine, our share of total wine exports to the rest of the world is very very small when compared to some of our European counterparts such as France, Italy and Spain.
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So who are the big wine exporters?
When talking about wine, the odds are pretty good that French, Italian or South African wines would be mentioned. While SA's wines are held in very high esteem, it seems like South Africa is not taking full advantage of this by export more wine to the rest of the world. The map below shows the big wine exporting countries (the bigger the bubble the bigger the overall share in wine exports). And from the map its clear the big wine exporters are largely based in Europe.
So the question is whether there exists and opportunity for South Africa to export more of its wines to the rest of the world? And if so why are winemakers not taking advantage of it? With a ever weakening currency, South African wines would become comparatively cheaper to those of other countries with stronger currencies.
The table below shows the 13 biggest exporters of wine (based on the US dollar value of wine exported) and their cumulative contribution to total world wide wine exports for 2016.
The table below shows the 13 biggest exporters of wine (based on the US dollar value of wine exported) and their cumulative contribution to total world wide wine exports for 2016.
Total value of wine exported by biggest wine exporters in the world for 2016
As mentioned based on looking at the map, wine exports in 2016 was clustered around Europe. This table shows that the top 3 wine exporters in the world are France, Italy and Spain and they make up almost 57% of all wine exports in the world. South Africa is currently the 12th biggest exporter of wine, with wine exports of SA bringing in $661.6million.
The average price per kilogram of wine exported (kilograms are used as that is the quantity variable supplied) by the top 13 countries in 2016 are as follows:
Average price in US$ per kilogram of wine exports for the biggest wine exporting countries in the world
As the table above shows, South Africa's wine exports was the 2nd cheapest of the top 13 wine exporting countries in the world. So its not as if our wine exports are expensive. Clearly local wine producers are either struggling to break into the wine markets across the world, or they find it more profitable to sell wine in South Africa? As wine in SA is sold for far more than $1.33 (R18.10 at today's exchange rate). So is it a case of rather selling wine in SA and then just exporting excess stock at reduced prices to the rest of the world? Well we might never know. But the numbers sure tells an interesting story and raises even more interesting questions.