Vote Against Trump's Tariffs With Your Wine Choices

The political and economic turmoil of the past week will have repercussions everywhere. Its easy to assume US President Donald Trumps tariff wars will have little effect on the price of goods in SA or that, if you are not an exporter to the US, it will be life as normal for the foreseeable future.

At the most basic level, this may be largely true. However, the weakened rand as much a casualty of the lack of unity in the government of national unity as anything else will produce knock-on price increases where you might least expect them. The cost of a loaf of bread could go up by more than a bottle of sauvignon blanc: one is subject to the dollar-based price of wheat, and the latter is largely inured to import cost inflation. This would be less true of high-end cabernet, which is aged in French oak barrels, an expense that cannot be deferred and which, together with cork closures, is sometimes greater than the cost of the fruit that goes into the wine.

This doesnt mean that what is happening is largely irrelevant to the average wine drinker: the loss of a major export market must have a ripple effect through the whole industry. The US, while not as important as the long-established European destinations, is one of the Capes most important export markets. We feature 10th on the list of top wine suppliers to the US, way below several European countries, most notably Italy the US absorbs 24 of all Italian wine, for whom the Trump tariffs will be little short of disastrous.

Our sales to the US have see-sawed over the years in 2023 we dispatched half the volume we sent in 2022. But even in a year as challenging as 2023 our bottled wine exports totalled more than 7.5-million litres, more high-end wine than we sent to Germany a long-standing market or even China.