'Lockdown leaves 18 000 jobless in wine industry'
Wines of South Africa (WoSA) claims some 18 000 people have been left jobless due to the impact of the lockdown on the wine industry.
Government banned the sale and transportation of alcohol for more than two months as part of a raft of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.
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Alcohol only went back on sale when the government eased to lockdown to level 3 on June 1.
WoSA spokesperson Maryna Calow says several wine producers have had to close their doors.
"There have been some very positive sales but unfortunately there are also those producers who did not get on the lockdown bandwagon and orchestrate sales, as they still could not deliver wine, and these were the producers who were unfortunately left behind.
"We have to remember that many of the producers didn't have cash flow for roughly two to three months and some simply couldn't afford to have that cash flow due to the position they might have been in before the lockdown started."