Will returning Saffers save SA wine?

Moneyweb reports this morning that “more than 400 000 white expat South Africans have returned to the land of their birth since the apex of the financial crisis in 2009.” Which has to be good news for local wine sales.

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“StatsSA keeps close tabs on the racial identity of working-age South Africans, though the government has long since stopped measuring the numbers leaving and returning.

SA’s white population of working age (15 to 64 years) peaked at 5.9 million in 1973, but declined steadily to 3.9 million in 2009. Since then, the white population has risen to 4.3 million, a net gain of 400 000 over six years. That’s a substantial brain gain for the country, since most of these returnees bring vast international experience in finance, engineering, medicine and other professions.”

The white working age class corresponds to the peak wine drinking cadre while the current Randela weakness rules out most imports with the exception of Shoprite/Checkers.

Another bonus for SA wine will be smarter staff for Wien Routes and PR companies with an important international perspective and an ability to understand social media. A fresh crop of sommeliers, too. Some of those shockingly provincial poppies and kerels currently warming La-Z-Boy recliners in Oak City, sipping rooibos tea and munching Marie biscuits, should go back to their farms and blow up those plastiek pakkies for tuisnywerheid koeksusters.