Ethiopia is planning, in partnership with Castel (a French wine making group) to start exporting wine from the vineyard near Ziway, 170km to the south of Addis Ababa.

The site was chosen in 2008 and 750,000 vines were planted, employing a labour force of 750, mostly local people.

"We want to export nearly half of our production, especially to the United States, which has a large Ethiopian community," Robel Seido, head of sales at Castel, said. According to Seido, the other half of the production will be set aside for the local market, but it will be of a better quality than the few existing table wines in the country.

The first grape harvest will be in November and the first bottles are scheduled to go on the market early next year. 

The long-term aim of the project is to compete with South African wines, which are considered the best on the continent.  

The vines in the farm near Ziway were brought from Bordeaux. The vineyard covers an area of 125 hectares and is expected to produce about 800,000 bottles of wine a year. The vines are all French varieties: merlot, syrah and cabernet sauvignon for the red wine, which will account for 90 percent of production, and chardonnay for the remaining 10 percent of white.

The project was launched in 2007 by the Ethiopian government and the French group Castel to diversify agriculture and promote the country's products. The Castel group is already active in Ethiopia in beer and breweries.

Source: Guardian Weekly