Retail grape sales turn over as normal, but which market could close next?
Grape Alliance managing director Leon de Kock says the company can see supermarket orders from Europe and the UK coming in stronger as they pick up the slack with their Hex River grapes as the Orange River crop is reduced by rain damage.
It’s been a bit of a stop-start season in the Hex River Valley.
“The sugars are developing more gradually than last year,” he says.
“We’re not late, the way the Orange River was late, we’re more or less on time. All of the cultivars, including Crimsons with which we expect to start next week, are slower to ripen, which you can see as a good thing, having the grapes more spread out than last year.”