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Cape Town - A new seal on wine bottles will in future reassure South Africans that the product has been produced in an environmentally sustainable way.
At present, South Africa is the only country that can implement and certify this concept across the whole spectrum of its wine industry.
The new seal, issued by the Wine and Spirits Board, will appear only on bottled wine and be supported by a sophisticated tracking system by means of which every stage in the wine-production chain can be tracked with a unique number.
The voluntary system, which will start with the 2010 harvest, is available to those wineries that comply - at farm, cellar, and bottling level - with the sustainability guidelines laid down by the Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) scheme.
In the process, attention will be given to aspects such as integrated pest control, worker health, the preservation of biodiversity and greenhouse gas reduction.
Su Birch, CEO of Wines of South Africa (Wosa), which introduced the project on behalf of various institutions, said more than 95% of the South African wine industry already follows sustainable viticulture and winemaking principles. She expected about 50% of the country's producers for the 2010 vintage to use the new seal.
Since the seal will appear only on wine bottles in South Africa, producers might think twice about having their wines bottled offshore instead of locally, said Birch.
- Sake24.com
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