ORGANIC wine makers have formed their own association, Organic Wines South Africa.
Created in September 2024, and encompassing the core, established, certified-organic wine Estates of South Africa, the objective of the Association will be to broadly market the merits of sustainability in our agricultural processes and of the non-chemical production methods of our wines.
“We aim to promote the development of sustainable production throughout our sector, including information sharing and the pooling of technical experience & expertise, while collaborating in collective marketing, both domestically and throughout the globe,” said the association.
While there are 11 founding members its intention is to extend membership to any willing South African Producer of Organically-certified wines, present or future, including those officially in conversion and those certified organic regenerative. It has adopted European Union (EU) criteria, in terms of verifiable Certifcation parameters, so as to ensure that an optimum level of compliance is ensured in order to qualify as a member.
The membership has appointed a management committee to develop and drive the objectives and plans for the Association. This is constituted of:
- Chairperson: Alex Dale / Radford Dale Organic Estate
- Treasurer: Johan Reyneke / Reyneke Wines
- Secretary: Tyrrel Myburgh / Joostenberg Estate
At the signing into being of the Association, Chairperson Alex Dale stated: “The South African Wine Industry has, in the past 30 years, come a very long way. To the extent that in many well-informed markets around the world, South African wine is recognised for its ever-increasing quality and its immense value. With the formation of Organic Wines South Africa, we have an opportunity to provide energetic leadership in the mission of upping our collective game in regards to sustainability, and with a particular focus on viticulture.
Most of our members distribute throughout South Africa, and many export already to markets across the world, providing a well-established network on which to hitch our collective message. We aim to create a situation where we help to directly and significantly develop the numbers of organic wine Producers in South Africa and to bring into the contemporary mainstream these principles of sustainability.
“It is common knowledge that there tends to be a prevalence of ‘Greenwashing’ when it comes to the marketing of ‘sustainability’ in many sectors and wine production is certainly not immune from this. For this reason, and to avoid any uncertainty, we will limit our membership to ‘certified-organic and or certified-biodynamic wine producers.”
Industry Background
In 2022, 8,4% of the Global vineyard was Organic. Up from 1,4% in 2005 (according to Organic World). In the EU, at the same date, more than 10% of all Agriculture is now Organic.
With this rate now escalating, it is estimated that organic agriculture will represent in excess of 1/3 of the industry within a generation.
IWSR (International Wine and Spirits Record) reports that global sales of organic wine have grown from 29-million cases in 2012 to 71-million cases in 2022 (+145%) and are said to be in an exponential growth phase. Sales of non-organic wine over this period fell from 2,4-billion cases to 2,06-billion cases (-14.2%) and continue to decline.
In South Africa, it is estimated that there are between 2 – 3 dozen Organic Wineries today, counting for only a small fraction of total production, below 1%.
