Wine festival draws record crowd
 

Organisers of the third annual Soweto Wine Festival this past weekend were particularly   pleased by the support from younger people. The event drew many more patrons than before, mostly young Sowetans aged between 18 and 30, suggesting a keen interest among a group that has had little experience of wine pleasure.

Sapa reports that the festival is having an impact on black South Africans who are partial to beer and brown spirits, although the country is the world's ninth biggest wine-producer and accounts for 3,3% of the global market.

Organiser Marilyn Cooper of the Cape Wine Academy said the event is clearly growing. ‘A total of about 1 500 people attended the first show in 2005, 3 000 last year and more than 2 000 on the first day of this latest show’, she said.

Busi Yende, a course coordinator at the wine academy, said that the 2007 show had been the best to date. ‘We improved on logistics this year, the show was better publicised and we also have many big sponsors, unlike in the past editions’, she said.