Cape Town - Don Tooth, chief executive of Anglo American's Vergelegen Wine Estate, reckons that the government should invest more in boosting the image of South African wines

"We should be making long-term investments in the markets of the future," he said in an interview at the estate.

"The United States imports the highest value of wines, whatever way you look at it. So from the point of view of making inroads, it's an absolutely crucial market to make inroads in. It's probably the most complex market. But if you make it work, the rewards can be quite significant."

Tooth complained that the government has been spending peanuts there.

"But if you look at the forecast for 2012 they will be the largest wine-consuming country in the world. You don't start ignoring the largest wine-consuming country in the world particularly when they have got a strong import base."

There was, he said, a decision taken by the board of Wines of South Africa, which is a combination of the government and the wine industry, that "we go back and concentrate on where we make our money in Europe, and that's where we'll go and spend it".

He doesn't believe that the new markets in the developing world will fill the bill.

"The likes of China and India will take some wine, but the volumes are very low," he said.

Comparatively, he protested, government funding to the wine industry is low.

"We had studies done comparing ourselves with our competitors.

"The Australians have 2 600 wine producers, they believe that at least 2 000 of those would not be profitable if it were not for government subsidy."

Last bastion

Government does not really like the wine industry. "In our industry we are still white, Afrikaans and really bad," Tooth said - though he himself is not Afrikaans.

"The government regards us as the last bastion. The government regards Afrikanerdom as the wine industry.

He insists that the government has cut back spending and so local producers get just about zero subsidy in any of the areas.

Government subsidy would not be of great value to Vergelegen, he said, but it would be of value to Brand South Africa.

The Wosa board has 20 or so members, but only one of them represents the estates and the private producers. But if the industry is going to build an image, the private producers are the flag bearers, he says.

-I-Net Bridge