Letter to the editor: Is South African wine really too cheap?

The following received via email from Louis Vigneault-Dubois, a former diplomat and WSET Level 2-certified wine enthusiast:

Last week, I read Tim Atkin’s annual South Africa Special Report with great interest, and one argument in particular stayed with me: that South African wines remain too cheap internationally.

Having spent the past five years living in South Africa and discovering its extraordinary wine scene, I have a lot of sympathy for that view. But after recently moving back to Germany, I’m seeing the question of value from a different perspective.

Let’s look at white wine in particular. A small moment in a wine shop recently summed it up perfectly.

On a hot August evening, a young woman walked in looking for a fresh white wine to take to an open-air concert with friends. Her budget was around €15 (R280).

The cheapest South African white on the shelf was Ken Forrester Old Vine Reserve Chenin Blanc at €18 (R335). The next on the price scale was Luddite Saboteur White at €24 (R450).

A few shelves away were several excellent German Rieslings, Pinot Gris and more at €15–16 (R280–300), some even carrying the VDP Erste Lage designation, loosely comparable to Premier Cru.

The salesperson made a convincing case for the Ken Forrester Chenin. But the customer chose a German white.

Not because it was necessarily better. It was slightly cheaper, more familiar and felt like the safer choice.

That small interaction captures what I think is one of the challenges facing South African wine in Europe.

The producer’s price isn’t the consumer’s value

I completely agree that many South African growers are not paid enough. Old vines, low yields and quality viticulture are expensive and increasingly difficult to sustain at current prices.

But what producers need to charge and what international consumers perceive as value are two different questions.

Many of the interesting South African wines I encounter in Germany seem to start around €20 and quickly move into the €30–40 range and above. For an enthusiast who understands what an old-vine Chenin from the Swartland or Stellenbosch represents, these wines can offer exceptional value.

For the broader consumer, however, €30 or €40 is already firmly premium territory.

Competition is fierce

In Germany, the €10–20 segment for white wine is packed with excellent Riesling, Grauburgunder and Weissburgunder, alongside Austrian Grüner Veltliner, Italian and Spanish whites, Loire Sauvignon Blanc, Rhône blends and entry-level Chablis.

Consumers are not only faced with an enormous range of familiar alternatives; many European producers also prominently market their organic, biodynamic or sustainability credentials, messages that may resonate more strongly with today’s European consumer than, for example, an old-vine certification.

What I see far less often are compelling South African whites in that price category that can persuade a curious but relatively casual wine drinker to take a chance on the Cape.

South Africa certainly has the story: extraordinary old vines, distinctive terroirs and a generation of exceptional winemakers. Critics know it. Serious wine lovers increasingly know it.

But the average European consumer probably doesn’t know what Stellenbosch, Swartland or Hemel-en-Aarde represent, let alone who Eben Sadie, Chris Alheit or the Mullineux are.

And as prices rise, that lack of recognition matters even more. A €20 South African Chenin is no longer competing simply with other Chenins. It is competing for the same money a consumer might spend on a serious German Riesling, a Chablis, Sancerre or any number of established European wines and regions backed by decades, sometimes centuries, of consumer recognition.

For South African producers and grape growers, the uncomfortable reality is that making excellent wine and having a compelling story is not enough. Plenty of other wine regions can offer both.

Among casual drinkers, price remains a crucial part of the value equation. And this is where South Africa seems to struggle: consumers can often find very good wines from more familiar regions at a cheaper price. However good the South African bottle may be, that makes it a harder choice on the shelf.

Bridging the price gap

The answer for the industry, therefore, cannot simply be to push prices upwards. It also has to be about strengthening the value proposition and building recognition across different price points.

Someone who discovers a brilliant South African Chenin for €10 today is far more likely to spend €30, €50 or €60 on a serious bottle tomorrow. But if the choice is between an €6 supermarket “dry white” and a €30 specialist bottle, we are asking consumers to skip several rungs of the ladder.

South Africa needs those intermediate rungs: wines that are accessible enough to encourage discovery, distinctive enough to create an association with the Cape, widely available enough to build recognition, and compelling enough to make consumers want to take the next step.

Ultimately, the question may not be whether South African wine is really too cheap internationally, but whether it has the right proposition at every level of the market to bring consumers along on the journey, from an accessible first bottle, to the middle ground, and eventually to the country’s great wines.

The quality is already there at the top. The challenge is building the steps that lead consumers there.