- Jannie Mouton’s JSE-listed Zeder Investments tries to replace the board of KWV and dismantle the company. The attempt fails after a furious corporate counter attack led by Johann Rupert.
- SA market share continues to contract in the UK and Europe thanks to an Australian price war and quality strides in Spain and Chile. Wine farm prices weaken further in the Western Cape.
- A bonanza of brandy festivals: with the SA wine show market now seriously overtraded wine show impresarios will attempt to expand their brands and cash in on the undertapped brandy market. The runaway success of Whisky Live confirms that S’effrican appetites for spirits are a long way from being sated.
- Incoming Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll announces plans to dispose of Vergelegen to Californian property developer and wine mogul Bill Harlan and Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda Group.
- At least one major buyer’s own brand boycotts Platter: with Pick’s Pick Merlot rated 1½ stars lower than the same wine in a Jordan bottle, a (subconscious?) bias against mass market labels, thanks to sighted Platter tasting procedures, was once again confirmed in the 2007 edition of the annual wine guide. With the rumour spittoon awash with examples of fashionable cuvées rated above the odds (in 2005 it was Mooiplaas/Shoprite Checkers), producers assess that the game is not worth the candle.
- Wine magazine’s Shiraz Challenge produces yet another crop of highly rated wines no one has ever heard of: consistency (or the lack thereof) remains elusive for SA Shiraz.
- At least one major co-operative cellar goes to the wall as tight domestic trading conditions and reduced exports bite.
- Veritas awards a record number of medals to a record number of entries.
- Brait Private Equity sells wine merchant and distributor DGB to management in a management buyout.
- Winemakers rave about the quality of vintage 2007.
- The local markets is still flooded with wines which were earmarked for exports, or bottled from excess stocks, with old vintage Sauvignon Blancs and other bottle matured white wines abounding.
- The brilliant international marketing comeback of the French, especially with their Bordeaux campaign, reduces the international shelfspace of SA wine in the higher price bands everywhere.
- SAA continues to serve tired, fruit-deprived white and ordinary one-dimensional red wines in 250 ml bottles in the economy sections of all their flights, locally and internationally, despite all the brouhaha about the wise selection and pristine management of these wines.
- SA wine consumers continue to disregard local wine accolades and the accompanying intricate sensory embellishments, with the trade knowing very well that such announcements have no bearing on higher store GP’s. Value for money wines remain the order of the day.
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