Fewer Grapes for South African Wine as El Nino Damages Harvest

South Africa’s wine-grape crop will probably be the smallest since 2011 after El Nino caused excess heat and dry weather, industry body VinPro said.

The crop is seen declining 6.7 percent to 1.38 million metric tons in 2016, the Paarl, Western Cape province-based organization said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday. That would be the least since 2011, when the country’s output was 1.30 million tons, data from the South African Wine Industry Information and Systems show. The wine harvest — which includes juice and concentrate for non-alcoholic purposes, wine for brandy and distilling wine — may be 1.07 million liters, it said.

Even with the wine-grape crop being smaller, “the industry still managed to reach higher productions than initially expected following a season characterized by abnormal heat and water shortages,” Francois Viljoen, manager of VinPro’s viticulture consultation service, said in the statement.


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