Harvesting has started on Crimson, a high-yielding cultivar in the Hex River Valley which benefits from a more maritime influence than in other grape growing regions of South Africa.
Right: grapes that will go to China
Crimson is a cultivar on which they have a lot of their hopes pinned, says Stephan Rossouw, marketing director at Mooigezicht Estates which packs just short of two million cartons of grapes a season.
The commencement of the grape harvest was the earliest ever, in week 50. Mooigezicht’s 19 varieties (grown at ten production units on 400ha) are packed until week 16 with last arrivals in weeks 21 or 22.
The Sweet Globe harvest has also started, a variety that these days, along with Autumn Crisp, pretty much opens every conversation with grape traders from Canada to China, Stephan remarks.
“We have been 30 % down on our first varieties and our estimate, in line with production estimates in the Hex River Valley, is that we’re probably going to end up 10% down on our volumes,” says Francois Rossouw, MD of Mooigezicht.
They’re hoping to arrest this trend with Crimson, their mainstay of which they pack 800,000 cartons a season, and make up for the lower volumes on their early varieties.
“Crimson is our big success here in the Hex River and we can pack it from week 3 to week 16. We are often congratulated on the taste of our Crimson and it will always be our main variety that we harvest at 18 brix. We get lots of cold units, even during harvest time, that benefits the optimal development of colour and sugar.”
Paper bags protect bunches against insect damage in a Mooigezicht vineyard
Puzzling trend of low-weight berries
Francois explains that they were hoping not to see the same trend which has been puzzling the rest of the industry but they’ve already noticed on Starlight, Prime, Arra 29, Sugraone, and now also with Sable, that the berries look great and achieve size requirements, but they don’t have the required weight. By example, Stephan notes that where normally an extra-large Sweet Globe berry weighs 7g, now it weighs 5g.
During flowering we had a heat wave and the berries aborted resulting in fewer berries setting per bunch. Normal cell division did not take place with fewer cells formed per berry that has an effect of 2 till 3 gram less weight per berry. This calculates to a lighter crop than what has been estimated.
"We had decided pre-season to reduce the size of the bunches for better berry size, colour and sugar levels for optimal eating quality. The smaller bunches reduce the yield even further."
The management of irrigation and sugar levels are the two key factors that we will have to manage carefully to help increase the weight of the production of the cultivars that still have to be harvested.
By contrast, the Autumn Crisp, Timpson, Sweet Globe, Scarlotta and Allison are looking better than the estimates and they’re hoping that the trend of lighter berries won’t continue into the season. We are keeping our fingers crossed hoping for a normal to average Crimson yield.
Moreover, they received almost half their annual rainfall over two days completely outside of their usual rainfall season, over weeks 50/51 when they were starting their exceptionally early Starlight and Prime harvest. They took a conservative stance not to export those varieties but sell it locally.
Stephan, his brother, concurs. “We’re not going to take chances with our quality, even if it jeopardizes volumes. That’s how serious we are about quality.”
Berries that don't fulfill exact colour requirements are removed from bunches
Recalibration after 2022
They have had to work hard to win back the confidence of their receivers in Europe after last season’s quality problems caused by logistical delays. Unlike this year, the crop was very large with an Industry record of 77 million cartons being produced during the 2021/22 season.
“We have been working for a good quality year,” Stephan concurs.
According to Francois they have put new strict protocols in place to manage the pulp and dew point temperatures, handling protocols during harvest, transport, that includes managing the tire pressure, the packing process and a sanitation protocol of the 11 packing houses as well as the orchards. "We have included an expert with many years of experience in the industry to help manage the protocols during the season."
Grapes being precooled after coming in from the vineyard
This year all the berths at the Cape Town Container Terminal are operational and it’s taking only a week for containers to be loaded and shipped out.
“Logistics are much better this year, so we’re really confident that we will achieve better prices with our quality,” Stephan declares.
Given the reduced available volumes, they’ve been recalibrating their marketing plan.
“We will rather look at mainstream programs that we service directly (50% of our volumes) while it’s important that our clients in Europe know that we will always honour our commitments. At the end of the day, it’s about supplying the relationship,” Francois says, observing that last year’s long list of unwanted varieties in Europe seems not be in force this year. “Now everything is in huge demand to fill supermarket shelves.”
The Mooigezicht packhouse amid the vineyards nestled against the mountain slopes of the Hex River Valley
Focus on Dollar markets
Since the launch of their Mooi brand in Guangzhou in 2009, grape demand has been such that they could hypothetically take all of their volumes into China and the Far East if they chose. Francois remarks that their main client in Guangzhou was ecstatic when he told them that the Covid lockdowns in China had ended.
Due to the strength of the Dollar compared to the Sterling Pound and the Euro, they have decided on a stronger focus on the Dollar markets to help offset the ever-rising break-even point of production, while remaining flexible in moving volumes between Dollar markets (like Canada, the USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam) and Europe.
Francois maintains that the whole industry will be looking more closely at Southeast Asia and China which will benefit a South African grape crop which will grow to 80 million cartons in future.
Brothers Stephan and Francois Rossouw of Mooigezicht Estates
Stephen adds that Mooigezicht is always looking to see where they can add value, for instance with combination punnets. They’re running the biggest punnet-packing operation in the Hex River, short of 400,000 mixed punnets last year, which might be a world record jokes Francois, out of their total production of 1.9 million 4.5kg.
“It takes a bit of effort but over the years we’ve trained out staff to pack mixed punnets at same pace as normal punnets,” Stephan says. “I believe there’s potential for good punnet and mixed punnet programmes in every market.”
The main challenge is to break even as costs rise across the board and the global economy struggles to recover from Covid, but Stephan is confident of opportunities even under these conditions.
For more information:
Francois Rossouw
Mooigezicht Estates
Tel: +27 23 356 2110
Email: francois@mooigezicht.co.za
Stephan Rossouw
Email: stephan@mooigezicht.co.za
https://mooigezicht.co.za/