Wine Festival 2024 pours in Dar before Valentines Day. But how many Tanzanians take the grape liquor?

It is coming up a week before Valentines’ Day, the sixth edition of the Tanzania’s one and only wine festival, gets staged in the country’s commercial capital.

The annual Dar es Salaam Wine Week Festival (DWWF), hits the drink glasses from the third day of February 2024.

It is organized by Tamu the popular city brand dealing with events specializing in food, drinks, and all-around life content.

Serena Hotel, one of the prestigious five-star tourist properties in the city is hosting the Wine Week Festival.

Events include free wine tastings, business meetings, drink sampling and other interactive sessions.

Kelly Simon, the founder of the company behind the event said they have been organizing the festival since 2015.

“We have decided to organize the week to create a platform for the appreciation of the art of winemaking in Tanzania, ” Kelly explained.

Tanzania happens to be Africa’s second-biggest wine producer after South Africa.

The country is also being praised for making the best and sweetest wines on the continent.

Yet its residents hardly bother to drink wine, despite ranking high when it comes to guzzling other types of alcoholic drinks.

In fact, latest news from grapevine reveals that Tanzania is totally missing out, from the recently released list of Top-Twenty African Countries with largest Wine consuming Population.

Recent figures from Statista indicate that Togo tops the bill with 26 percent of the country’s population enjoying their glass of wine, be it red or white the Togolese cheer to their health.

Cameroon comes second with 25 percent of its population sipping wine.

In the third position enters Ivory Coast with 23 percent. Cote d ‘Ivoire ties with the Congo (Brazzaville) also with 23 percent population of wine drinkers.

Benin comes in at Number Five with 21 percent of its citizens drinking wine.

The Mineral Rich South-Africa is slotted at Number 6 with 19 Percent. Again SA ties with Gabon which also has 19 percent as well as Burkina Faso again with 19 percent.

Nigeria may have the largest population in Africa, but its residents are not keen on wine, only about 18 percent of Nigerians drink wine. The country there ranks 9th under this segment.

Closing the top-ten is Namibia whose 15 percent of the Population bothers to taste wine.

From the Grapevine

Now when it finally comes to the East African region, it is only Kenya at Number eleven, which at least has a considerable percentage of it residents who sometimes sip their wines. These, according to Statista, account for 13 percent of the country’s population.

Madagascar may be famous for its popular film starring Penguins, but only about 13 percent of its human population drink wine, placing the country at number 12.

The Democratic Republic of Congo happens to be a big country, but only 12 percent of its people drink wine, ranking DRC at number 13 on the wine list.

Ah! The Ugandans, between if asked to choose between Wine and Waragi, they will pick the latter. Still, 11 percent of its population will go for the former, that is why the country is ranked 14th in Africa.

It seems the Northerly you go, the Winery its get and Morocco, at number 15, is also among the top twenty countries of Africa with wine drinkers. At least 11 percent of its population enjoys their glasses.

Ethiopia with its ancient churches should have been in the top ten in the list, but somehow only about 11 percent of the Abyssinians drink wine. Possibly the red Altar wine too at the country hits the 16th position.

We all know how good Zambians are at guzzling down all varieties of Beer, but when it comes to Wine, it is only 10 percent of the population that pour it in their glasses. Zambia is 18th on the list.

Still up North, the Sahelian Ghana, at the Sahara, has managed the 19th position with 10 percent of its population drinking wine.

Closing the list at number 20 is Malawi, bordering Tanzania on the South. Only 9 percent of Malawians drink wine. Still the figure is better than their immediate northern neighbor.

Grapevines were first introduced to the Tanzania’s central zone in 1938 by missionaries from the Hombolo Catholic Mission.

Dodoma, a city which recently had its status upgraded to a Capital boasts more than 150 hectares of vineyards filled with clusters of red and white grapes that produce variety of Dodoma wines. The brand takes its name from the city n which the grapes are grown.

By 2013 Tanzania was ranked among Africa’s top five, challenging South Africa’s 350 years of dominance of the continent’s wine business.