Joint, Voluntary Seal for Wine of Origin and integraded production of wine

A world first and a great advantage for South Africa. A visual guarantee, not only for the integrity of origin, vintage and cultivar, but also for the sustainable production of wine and traceability from the vineyard to the bottle. The Wine Certification Authority currently administers three certification schemes; Wine of Origin (WO), Estate Brandy and Integrated Production of Wine (IPW). For WO a certification seal has been in existence for many a year, but there was no seal for sustainable and environmentally friendly farming and wine production. After wide consultation it was decided to establish a joint seal, which guarantees WO and IPW certification, as of the 2010 harvest.

The WO seal will still be available to producers who only comply with WO requirements and not IPW requirements. 96% of certified wines are certified in accordance with the WO and IPW schemes, meeting the requirements to carry the sustainability seal.

This alliance is called Sustainable Wine South Africa and you can access the website at www.swsa.co.za. This URL will be on the seal and consumers will be able to go to the website, enter the seal numbers and trace their bottle of wine all the way back to the IPW practices in the vineyard.