The 2013 wine grape harvest is expected to reach 1,491,432 tons - 5.4 percent up on 2012.

South Africa is looking at its biggest ever harvest this year despite a late and slow start to the growing season.

Wine production in South Africa is expected to reach an all-time high this year after the 2013 grape harvest outstripped expectations to reach nearly 1.5m tons.

Wine exports rose to 469 million liters (124 million U.S. gallons) in the year ending April 30, up 25 percent from the previous 12 months and more than triple the total shipped in 2000, data from the Wines of South Africa trade body, or WOSA, show.

South African wine exports are poised to beat their 2012 record this year following high yields and on demand for premium vintages from North America and Asia, industry executives and growers said.

Women in the Cape winelands are standing up to be counted, and are now producing their own wine, bottled under the label Women in Wine. A group of 20 women, all with backgrounds in the wine industry, formed the company seven years ago, with "the dream of giving women, especially farm workers and their families, a share in the industry".

South Africa's Distell Group has bought up the Kenyan government shares in Kenya Wine Agencies Limited (KWAL), the leading regional distributor. However Prof Peter Kimuyu, chairman of Kenya's Privatisation Commission, did not disclose any financial details except to say it was a market driven process.

Su Birch is to resign from her position as chief executive of Wines of South Africa at the end of September.

Birch, who has been CEO of the wine industry association since 2000, said that she intends to take "a brief sabbatical" and then focus on developing marketing plans for a range of clients

South African giant Distell Group has bought Bunnahabhain producer Burn Stewart Distillers for £160 million from CL World Brands and Angostura.

One of South Africa's largest wine producers, KWV, is preparing for a significant push forward in the UK after forming a recent distribution partnership with Myliko Wines.

The deal would see the JSE-listed group take over three Scotland-based malt whisky distilleries - Tobermory, located on the Isle of Mull; the Isle of Islay-based Bunnahabhain; and Deanston, in Doune, near Stirling - producing a total of 6.7-million litres a year of alcohol

State owned wines and spirit firm Kenya Wine Agency Ltd has finally ceded 26 per cent to South African wine maker Distel.

Liberty Wines has been appointed UK agent for South African producer Excelsior.

The new generation of winemakers in South Africa is helping to increase the prestige and sophistication of wines coming out of the country, according to leading wine critics at last week's ProWein in Dusseldorf, Germany.

At South Africa's Rostberg and Co., green bottles filled with a ruby liquid clink as they march along a conveyor belt, destined for wine-lovers from Paris to Shanghai. But if a trend toward bulk shipping continues, the music of the Rostberg bottling plant may be about to stop.

E&J Gallo Winery is targeting growth across Africa through a South Africa-sourced variant of its US wine brand, Barefoot.

South African wine producer Charles Back has opened his new Spice Route destination in Paarl, in a bid to introduce tourists to his Swartland range of Spice Route wines.

Morocco and Algeria are significant wine producers - and if you buy a nondescript house carafe during a visit to Paris or Marseilles, chances are good that what you're drinking came from one of those two countries.

Premium Independent Wineries of South Africa, a collective of like-minded, independent producers, has been launched in a bid to to raise the profile of premium South African wine.