CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – For South African winemaker Vergenoegd Löw, the pandemic could have been a disaster but a bitter trade war between China and Australia has thrown the 325-year-old estate a lifeline.
Bottles of its reds, whites and roses piled up when South Africa banned alcohol sales under a strict lockdown and visitors who once flocked to the vineyard near Cape Town to sip wine and snap photos of its famed Indian Runner ducks vanished.
That changed when Beijing slapped tariffs of up to 212% on Australian wine in November after Canberra led calls for an inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.
It wasn’t just wine. Beijing hit a range of Australian goods with punitive duties, created new layers of red tape and banned some Australian imports outright, giving African suppliers of anything from coal to beef to copper a boost.
To read the full article, please click here