Beating The South African Trade Boycott

It is easy to forget that the advent of multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela, brought to end an extended period of economic boycott.

Although the UN had passed a number of trade sanctions these were all aimed at military hardware; both preventing the export to and import from South Africa. Public pressure over the previous 15 years lead by campaigners such as Peter Hain had reduced the amount of trade with the UK. The one South African product that managed to thrive during this period was wine and sherry.

A large measure of this, was masterminded from this little warehouse, in a small lane off the High Street. It was where some enterprising businessmen set up a wholesale wine business dealing with Bulgarian wines. The sudden availability of good quality Bulgarian wines in the late 1970s and early 1980s was down to the smuggling of South African juice into that country and then repackaged as Bulgarian. To my mind, this situation is confirmed by the sudden fall in quality and availability of Bulgarian wines with the dropping of trade sanctions and rise of South African wines on the international market and there was no need to smuggle the stuff.

Interest in Bulgarian wine fell precipitously along with quality: although perhaps not yet up to South African standard, at least their quality is improving fast.

And all masterminded from a humble warehouse in East Grinstead.