France’s largest producer, The Castel Group, is expected to
bottle wine for export from its vineyard in Zeway, 200km south of Ethiopia’s
capital Addis Ababa, early next year.
The wines will be bottled over the next 3-6 months and will
be available on the international market shortly after, with Chardonnay the
first in the range to go on sale.
Total production from this year’s harvest is expected to be
around 450,000 bottles, according to Castel’s sales and marketing manager Robel
Seido, over half of which the company aims to export out of Africa.
The first foreign-owned winery in Ethiopia after the
socialist regime, Castel harvested its first Chardonnay grapes on 1 November,
with production of the wine set for early January.
The French producer has ploughed over £5 million into its
vineyard and factory in Zeway, which comprises 125 hectares of farmland planted
with over 750,000 Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay vines, with
Syrah accounting for the majority of the plantings.
A further 175ha is available for further planting in the
future.
Wine production would normally take five years from planting
to harvesting, but the project has born fruit in three-and-half-years due to
the Ethiopian climate’s suitability for grape growing.
Castel acquired the land from the Ethiopian state in early
2008 with the aim of producing locally-grown, quality wines, to help revitalise
the country’s wine industry.
Ethiopia has a history of wine production, but the industry
entered a period of decline after wineries were nationalised by the military
regime and production facilities not upgraded.
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