'Vintage gold, tariff cold: SA wine's perfect harvest meets Trump's cold shoulder
After a near-perfect 2025 harvest, South African vintners are facing an unexpected threat: a tariff tempest brewing in the US, one of the country's top five export markets.
South Africa's 2025 harvest season was, by all accounts, a masterpiece.
'It's going to be one of those standout years where people will specifically search for wines from the 2025 harvest,' said Maryna Calow, communications manager at Wines of South Africa (WoSA).
British wine importer and critic, Bartholomew Broadbent, agreed.
'The 2025 vintage in South Africa was outstanding,' he told Daily Maverick. 'I was recently there and tasted many wines in cask. Volumes were good, the quality exceptional.'
The grapes, nurtured through a Goldilocks season of moderate weather and minimal climatic drama, ripened to near perfection. No aggressive heat spikes. No hail storms. Even the winter dormancy was ideal, with well-timed rains and cold enough temperatures to ready the vines for an exceptional yield.
As South African wine producers prepared to bottle what some are calling some of the best quality wine ever produced, another kind of storm began to brew. One that's political, protectionist, and unmistakably American.
A Trump-sized headache
On 2 April 2025, US president Trump reached for an economic cudgel in the form of tariffs, and South African wine found itself squarely in the firing line: slapped with a 30% import duty.
According to Calow, the United States is South Africa's fourth largest wine export market by value, exporting $8.21-billion (R153-billion) worth of wine to the US in 2024.
Visualisation by Kara le Roux
Thanks to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), South African wines previously enjoyed zero tariffs, a saving of about R20-million per year, noted Christo Conradie, stakeholder engagement, market access, and policy manager at South African Wine.
Now, a 10% tariff applies during a 90-day grace period, while the 30% proposal hangs over the industry like the sword of Damocles.
'There is a mad scramble in the USA right now to import wine at the 10% tariff level before the 90-day extension ends,' Broadbent explained. 'We usually ship the new vintage of wine… in July or August. This year we will ship it all in May and hope to beat the increased tariffs.'
Even if shipments sneak through customs at a lower rate, the damage has already been done.
'Importers may have cancelled orders from South Africa and turned to bulk producers in Chile and Australia,' Broadbent says. 'Once prices go up, even if tariffs are cancelled, most wine companies will not reduce prices back to pre-tariff levels.'
'Before the wine even hit the water, some US importers pulled out.'
Calow confirmed the exodus. Building relationships with importers took years, she added, and with global wine consumption declining, competition was already brutal.
US laws also require wholesalers to pre-post prices months in advance. Once the higher prices are locked in, they can't be reduced overnight even if the tariffs are scrapped.
Jobs, markets and margins under threat
The tariff threat is hitting an industry already bruised by Covid-era shutdowns and a lethargic global economy.
Broadbent pointed out that American consumer spending was under pressure from a stock market crash rivalling the Great Depression of 1932. Luxury goods (like wine) were often the first thing to be cut from stretched budgets.
'If your wine goes from $9.99 to $12.99 (R185 to R241) because of tariffs and mark-ups at every level of the US's three-tier system, sales will nosedive,' Broadbent said.
South Africa's wine sector supports more than 270,000 jobs, many in vulnerable rural areas. Conradie warned that the effects would extend beyond exporters and their immediate teams: '(The implications) will undoubtedly be felt across the broader economy, including job preservation and creation, particularly the socioeconomic impact on rural areas where viticulture is a significant economic driver.' He said suppliers of glass, labels, packaging, and logistics providers would all be affected in the long term.
Bulk wine exports — two-thirds of South Africa's shipments to the US — are especially vulnerable. Higher-end bottles might survive a modest price hike, but budget wines cannot absorb a 30% tariff without becoming unsellable.
'You don't know where you stand from one day to the next,' Calow said. 'We are still in limbo.'
Sin taxes and sour sales
South African wine producers aren't finding much comfort on the home front.
Finance Minister Enoch Godogwana hiked the excise duty on wine across the board: unfortified wine now attracts R5.95 per litre in duty, up from R5.57, with fortified and sparkling wines facing even steeper increases.
Domestically, the wine industry has still not bounced back to pre-pandemic volumes, according to an agricultural outlook report by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy.
Though sales have ticked upward since the lockdown years, premium bottles have lost considerable ground to bag-in-box formats, the report states.
The bag-in-box boom signals a shift in local buying habits as economic pressure forces consumers to prioritise value over presentation.
The report projects a 0.5% decrease in wine consumption by 2031, which is 12 million litres lower than in 2018. 'The growth is rather modest,' the report reads, 'and comes from a substantially reduced base following the shocks of 2020 and 2021.'
Swapping Uncle Sam for Chairman Xi?
Some exporters are peering north to Canada, where retaliatory trade measures have moved American wines off shelves.
'Canada certainly looks a lot more interesting,' Calow said, pointing out that up to 50% of Canadian wine sales were once filled by US products.
Asia, too, beckons. 'China is a big question mark,' Calow admitted, but a lucrative one: US wine exports to China could shrink dramatically amid the trade tensions, opening doors for South African producers.
However, market shifts don't happen overnight. As Conradie cautioned, wine is not a plug-and-play commodity as each market demands careful cultivation over years.
According to a study, commissioned by the SA Wine Industry Information & Systems published in January 2022, the silver lining for the South African wine industry was a positive value growth of total wine exports to a respectable US$540-million (R10-billion), despite a challenging global economy.
Visualisation by Kara le Roux
Exporters must also brace for greater currency risk, especially if they broaden their focus beyond the traditional dollar-dominated corridors.
'Expanding into Africa, the Middle East and Asia is critical,' Cornelius Coetzee, Country Director at Verto South Africa, advised. 'But it requires active currency risk management. You can't invoice naively in US dollars or euros and hope for the best.'
Coetzee stressed that wineries should consider multi-currency invoicing strategies and hedge foreign exchange exposure smartly. 'Flexibility and forward planning are non-negotiable,' he said.
Diplomacy but no direct relief
Daniel Johnson, the spokesperson for Dr Ivan Meyer, Western Cape Minister of Agriculture, Economic Development and Tourism, said the provincial government was monitoring the situation closely, engaging exporters, and exploring new markets.
However, no direct financial relief was planned for affected exporters. 'We continue engaging with diplomats to gain new markets, retain existing ones, and optimise our current operations,' Johnson said, noting a growing focus on African export markets as part of a longer term diversification strategy.
Keep calm and keep bottling
Amid trade war rumblings, Conradie urged caution: 'We must find a balanced and pragmatic approach to any proposed import tariffs on bottled and bulk wine.'
He warned against retaliation, saying that lowering South Africa's current 25% import tariffs on American wines could backfire.
'This could lead to an influx of competitively priced bulk wine and pressure on local producers, possibly triggering a damaging 'race to the bottom', which we cannot afford,' Conradie said.
Still, there is confidence that South Africa's strengths — quality, timing, and resilience — will endure.
'South Africa's value proposition remains strong,' Coetzee said. 'We have world-class agricultural quality and seasonal counterbalance to northern hemisphere supply.'
How does this affect you?
If you're a winemaker, exporter, or even a logistics provider, expect a period of turbulence.
Margins will be squeezed. Foreign exchange risk will rise. New competitors will crowd non-US markets. Even if you're not exporting directly to America, supply chain shocks and shifting demand will touch every part of the industry.
Coetzee advises exporters to:
Stay nimble: Match foreign exchange strategies to sales cycles.
Diversify: Spread risk across multiple markets and currencies.
Use smarter tools: Adopt live alerts, automated foreign exchange hedging, and spot trades.
Plan ahead: Model different currency exposure scenarios — don't rely on best guesses.
We've weathered worse
'We're guppies in a very big ocean when it comes to the US market,' Calow quipped. 'About 70% of the wines Americans drink are made locally. South African imports are maybe 1.5% of that segment.'
During the Covid-19 pandemic, when local wine sales were banned outright, the industry adapted and survived.
'The pandemic was much more severe than the threat of tariffs,' Broadbent said. 'Wineries survived. If they can survive that, they can survive the tariff situations.'
In 2024, South Africa's wine export volumes held steady at 306 million litres, with slight value growth. That's no small feat given the global glut in wine production.
'We're resilient,' Calow said. 'We just have to keep doing what we do best and make good wine.' DM
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