BurgundyStreet

This latest craze on the net about the value of South African wines due to rise because of South Africa hosting the FIFA World Cup is in my opinion, ridiculous.

Forget the global recession.  I don’t think South African wines had much of a chance to see their prices rising to begin with.  As a matter of fact, South African wines are a tough sell considering you have other New World options that are much more attractive in terms of value: Australia, Argentina, and Chile.

They’re not bad wines.  I’m certainly not stating that at all.  It has to do with cost.  South African wines are expensive to produce.  Their average cost puts them in the +$30 a bottle category, and most of the time, it’s unacceptable for the quality received.  I tend to compare them with the wines of Long Island, NY……good wines, but i always feel like i’m paying more on the mortgage of the land in the Hamptons, than the quality of what’s inside the bottle.  High production costs kill value!

I don’t think South Africa has much chance of being able to raise the prices of their wines.  I don’t think you’ll see them go for higher prices at the next auctions in London or New York.  The World Cup will only bring exposure to those wines.  And that ain’t so bad, i just hate these importers that create this bullshit hype in order to sell wines that are hard to sell to begin with.  I can see the Sales Dept, all huddled together brainstorming ways to sell these wines…..” I know, how about the World Cup?”

PS- The World Cup lasts for 30 days……  And the last one was held in Germany in 2006.  Does anyone remember the price of Rieslings go up then?  Comment below if you did.

£30,000 of South African wine has been stolen from a warehouse in Wimbledon, South London.

South African Wines Online, the specialist wine importer which owns the warehouse, was alerted to the robbery in the early hours of Monday morning by the warehouse manager.

The facility contained over 20,000 bottles of wine from 800 different producers.  Early indications suggest that the robbery was meticulously organised.

‘It was definitely planned quite carefully’, Julia Holbrook, sales and marketing manager for South African Wines Online told decanter.com. ‘They cut our telephone lines, waited for the call out and any activity as a result, and then broke in.’

Holbrook believes that the thieves had a good knowledge of South African wines and knew exactly what they were looking for. Many of the most expensive wines in their range were stolen, around 3000 bottles.

Some of the wines taken included Vergelegen V, a premium single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from the prestigious Vergelegen estate in the Western Cape of South Africa. Wines from Paul Cluver, including his much sought after Pinot Noir Seven Flags and Steenberg vineyards’ Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc blend, Magna Carta, were also stolen.

Crucially, many of these wines have sold out and are irreplaceable.