Back in 2015, Brand South Africa and Brand Finance released the Top 50 most valuable South African brands, and beer strutted onto the stage while wine stayed in the wings. Castle ranked No. 12, Carling Black Label No. 19, and Hansa Pilsener No. 24; not a single wine brand cracked the list. According to the Brand Finance report, beverages boomed, but wine didn’t land a spot.
Cue the soul-searching. For years, South African wine has wrestled with a split personality abroad: world-class bottles at the top, big volumes of bulk at the entry level. As Meininger’s International put it, SA has “long oscillated between cheap bulk wine and excellent top wines”, a tension that makes brand-building tricky.
So no, the answer isn’t to “out-beer” beer. Wine wins on place and purpose, and South Africa has both in ridiculous abundance. Our unfair advantage is that a glass can come with a plane ticket: wine tourism. According to the SA Wine/SAWIS, wine tourism contributed more than R7.2 billion to South Africa’s GDP, a serious number for something that also happens to be a cracking day out.
Then there’s the story that premium drinkers increasingly want to hear: conservation you can sip. According to WWF South Africa, the Conservation Champions programme recognises farms that actively protect biodiversity, clear thirsty alien vegetation, and improve water and energy efficiency, a practical, measurable way to show that farming with nature isn’t just a line on a label.
Some of the strongest evidence can be found in the tangible results observed within the industry. According to WWF’s case note on Boschendal, the estate cleared more than 500 hectares of alien vegetation, which has “had a significant and positive impact” on wildlife, and even brought year-round flow back to four streams that used to run dry in summer. That’s not marketing; that’s a mountain hydrology story in a bottle.
Waste and water matter, too. According to Spier’s sustainability updates, the farm recycles over 96% of its solid waste (with the remainder going to a waste-to-energy plant) and recycles 100% of its wastewater, the kind of systemic work that quietly underpins a premium promise.
And let’s talk cellar design, because the way you move wine can be as persuasive as the way you market it. Gravity-led spaces and renewables reduce pumping, energy use and noise. According to Glenelly, gravity-fed layouts cut the need for pumps, while solar now supplies a huge share of cellar power, Glenelly even says the addition of solar panels make the winery self-sufficient for electricity. That’s gentler on wine and more resilient when the grid throws a tantrum.
Put all of that together and a premium playbook emerges:
Will that fix our wine industries brand problems overnight? Of course not. But it flips the conversation. Instead of trying to price-match beer or flood shelves with anonymous volume, Brand South Africa (wine) plays the long game: measurable stewardship, memorable visits, and wines that feel of somewhere, not just from somewhere.
And when the next rankings roll around, I’d rather see fewer liters and stronger labels, labels backed by cleared rivers, thriving fynbos, near-zero waste, and cellars that hum on sunlight. That’s how wine earns its billboard again, not by shouting, but by showing.
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