Water marks
Friday, March 25th, 2011
Two months ago the five wine cellars which comprise Orange River Wine Cellars (ORWC) were all affected by the massive flooding which hit the region. Considering that the wineries – Upington, Grootdrink, Keimoes, Kakamas and Groblershoop – are separated geographically by roughly 400km, the extent of the worst flooding in four decades gains some perspective.
Herman Cruywagen, ORWC general manager, said this week that the intervening time had enabled accurate assessments of the extensive damage to be made. Around 800 hectares of vineyard of their members’ total 17 000ha was totally flooded. “There wasn’t too much direct damage to wine grapes or wine vineyards, not to the point where vines would have to be removed or replanted wholesale. Our yields or the tonnage that ORWC process is usually in the region of 150 000 to 160 000 tons. At the end of the day, our final figure is in the region of 120 000 tons which is fine. We’re satisfied with the quality that we received and believe that the 2011 harvest will still produce some good wines.” Roughly one third of all the grapes ORWC received are destined for bulk and bottled wine for a range of own labels and contract clients. The rest is used for fruit juice, distilling and rebate wine.
The difficulty arose at harvest time when farmers were either unable to access their vineyards in order to pick because of flood waters or be able to truck the harvested fruit to the respective wine cellars because the roads and bridges were flooded or washed out. Cruywagen said the problems were mainly infrastructural. “We have nearly 900 members who belong to ORWC and almost all of them are mixed farmers. They don’t farm wine grapes exclusively. Many of them produce table grapes or raisins – and it’s in those areas that the most damage was experienced. If our region actually manages to produce 20 000 tons of raisins this year it’ll be a lot…”
The flood had the biggest impact on irrigation equipment, canals, weirs and levees. The national government has already said there will be no assistance to farmers for crop losses. The loss of direct income to farmers in the Northern Cape has been estimated at R280 million. “That’s the kind of loss that the entire community feels,” Cruywagen said. “But it’s in the area of infrastructure that government is going to have to assist. There’s absolutely no way that farmers can replace what they’ve lost without State assistance. The levees and the irrigation canals are going to require major reconstruction because they stretch for kilometre upon kilometre.” Infrastructure damage is believed to exceed R1 billion.