Let’s be honest, few beverages carry the weight of ceremony and critique quite like wine. From swirling glasses to solemn sniffing, wine culture has birthed an entire ecosystem of etiquette that borders on sacred. Ask a sommelier and they’ll tell you: white wine deserves a cool 12°C and a narrow-rimmed glass with a long stem. Why? Because your hands carry heat, and a stem keeps your mitts from warming the wine. The narrow rim? It focuses those delicate floral and citrus aromas directly to your nose, like a whisper rather than a shout.
Meanwhile, red wine is a whole other opera. It demands to be decanted, not just to separate sediment, but to breathe. 18°C is its sweet spot, too cold and it’s muted, too warm and it gets flabby. A little patience here is considered not just polite but practically noble.
But the reality is that most of wine consumed are not consumed in this way, with glass bottle sales in South Africa making up 120 000 000L of wine while boxed wine is 210 000 000L in 2024. This shows us that our box wine drinking friends behind the so-called boerewors curtain are not the exception but rather majority of how South African wine is enjoyed.
Those of us in the wine industry are sometimes quick to judge consumers from inland regions. When observing individuals enjoying sweet wines from a box, it is common to hear remarks such as, “They are only drinking gateway wines; eventually, they’ll appreciate fine red wine.”
It is important to acknowledge a fundamental truth: without the steadfast support of domestic consumers, the South African wine industry would be in a significantly more vulnerable position. This was particularly evident in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, when international trade remained sluggish and export markets were slow to rebound. During this period, South Africans demonstrated remarkable loyalty and resilience, stepping up to support local producers in what can only be described as a patriotic response. Domestic wine consumption not only recovered, but it also surged beyond pre-pandemic levels, effectively offsetting the decline in export volumes and providing a crucial buffer for the industry.
While key competitors such as Argentina and Australia continue to grapple with surplus inventories and sluggish movement of stock, South Africa finds itself in a markedly different position. As of mid-2025, national wine stocks are below historical averages, a testament to the strength of local demand and the agility of producers in responding to shifting market dynamics.
As 2025 unfolds export sales are again falling, and we once again find ourselves relying on domestic consumers for support.
Not everybody’s wine journey is linear, it does not always flow from Johannesburger to Rubicon. Some people find what they like and stay with that and that is perfectly valid, that does not mean they do not appreciate wine less than the wine drinker who prefers a dry wooded Bordeaux blend.
Why are we so quick to judge how others choose to enjoy their wine or what wines they drink, we even gatekeep mixing wine. Order a Mimosa at brunch, sip on a New York Sour at a cocktail bar, or warm up with a mug of Glühwein at a Christmas market, and suddenly you’re seen as worldly, sophisticated, even cultured. These drinks are celebrated, photographed, and toasted with admiration.
But mention Katemba (red wine and Coke), Gatorwine (wine and Gatorade), or a splash of Sprite in your white wine (Süßschorle as the Germans call it), and the tone shifts. Suddenly, you’re branded as uncouth, unsophisticated, or worse: someone who “doesn’t understand wine.” It’s a strange double standard.
Wine has always been a shape-shifter, evolving across cultures, climates, and occasions. From rustic blends shared around village tables to avant-garde cocktails served in urban lounges, wine has continually reinvented itself. Even in countries with a strong wine producing culture there is a component of wine enjoyed with mixes and flavours. Heck, since the earliest days of winemaking, people have explored diverse ways to enjoy it, driven by curiosity, necessity, and creativity.
Consider the emergence of fortified wines, born from practical needs like preservation and improve the taste of wines with their added alcohol and high sugars, yet ultimately celebrated for their distinctive character. Or take Champagne, now synonymous with luxury and celebration, which began as a bold deviation from the norm. These styles were not mainstream in their time; they were outliers, experiments that challenged convention.
Yet over time, they found their place, shaped by those who embraced their uniqueness and the stories they carried forward. So why do some combinations earn praise while others invite ridicule? Is the whole point not to get as many people to enjoy wine.
Wine might come with rules, but humans? We come with creativity, and it is in this creativity that the future of the wine industry will lie. So next weekend when the game is on kick your feet up and make yourself a little Katemba, who knows you might just enjoy it and perhaps in a hundred years, the Bordeaux bourgeoisie will be sipping their Cabernet-Merlot blends with a splash of cola, claiming it as a bold reinterpretation of terroir and the only proper way to truly appreciate it.
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