Customers who have definite ideas about what they want and are unwilling to compromise

In South Africa’s scenic wine growing Western Cape, the Audacia winery wants to revolutionize the region’s famous industry after patenting a new technique that used Rooibos and Honeybush in the production of wine, beer and ciders.

With wine lovers globally looking for healthier ways to consume their favorite tipple, research conducted by the Department of Viticulture and Oenology at Stellenbosch University, found there were powerful antioxidants in Rooibos and Honeybush which may help preserve the wine naturally.

This method has the potential to eliminate the need for sulphur dioxide and other synthetic materials and preservatives.

Journalists were recently invited to sample the new Rooibos drinks at the Audacia wine farm in Stellenbosch.

Rooibos, a South African native tea, has been grown in the country for centuries. In the past decade, it has become popular with health-conscious consumers around the globe, leading to growing production and sales.

“Roughly half the rooibos crop is exported, the rest is consumed on the African continent of which the vast majority would be in South Africa. South Africa being the biggest rooibos consuming country in the world. If you look further afield Botswana has become a very strong market for rooibos. Zimbabwe also knows the product very well there are several brands in Zimbabwe, then if you look at what some of the supermarket chains are doing in Africa Nigeria for instance, rooibos typical South African brands are finding their way into those markets as well,” said Dawie De Villiers, managing director of cape natural tea Products.

The new Rooibos wine is the brainchild of wine farm owner Trevor Strydom who started experimenting with the process after drinking a cup of rooibos tea served by his daughter.

He and winemaker Michael van Niekerk put rooibos teabags in wine and found that it reduced the need for allergy-inducing sulphur and other common preservatives.

They now use the rooibos wood chips in the wine making process instead of the traditional oak.

“I see it being drunk all over the world, we registered the patent in 83 jurisdictions worldwide, we are already exporting the wine to China and it definitely will be drunk all over the world,” said Strydom.

Rooibos and honeybush wood are unique in that they contain no caffeine, low tannin levels making them ideal for use in wine, beer and cider as a natural preservative and flavoring product.

“It’s going to have definite effects on the global market because the market looks at competitors and especially not having to add sulphur ,there’s a huge advantage to the process and that changes the brand, it gives you a new brand that the health conscious world looks at so I’m pretty certain on the back of the rooibos brand that’s already around the world you will definitely see traction, but then even as a standalone product because its new its innovative it’s got a marketing edge and obviously if they do it cleverly they will get market share quite quickly,” said Alan Winde, minister of economic opportunities for the Western Cape government.

The Rooibos brand is internationally patented, making it a unique and typical South African product.

The plant is grown in the Cedarberg region of Clanwilliam and draws hundreds of tea lovers every year to the district.

In the Western Cape roughly 167,000 people are employed in the wine sector.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday appealed for an “honest compromise” with lenders but warned Greece would not agree to an “unconditional” one, after its biggest creditor demanded it do more to show commitment to reform.

With its cash coffers emptying rapidly, Athens is running out of time to convince euro zone and IMF lenders that it will implement reforms and is worthy of fresh aid. Athens could run out of cash by April 20, a source has previously said.

“It is true that we are seeking an honest compromise with our lenders but don’t expect an unconditional agreement from us,” Tsipras told parliament at a special session on the status of talks with lenders.

The radical leftist premier gave away little on progress made in talks, but, in a boost for the government, said a new law making it easier to repay tax arrears had already resulted in 100 million euros (73.1 million pounds) flowing into state coffers in a week.

Tsipras appealed to the centre-right opposition to support his efforts. Former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his conservatives would support efforts to unlock aid but not at the price of driving Greece into the ground.

“Whatever you do, do it fast,” said Samaras, who lost the January national election to Tsipras, accusing the 40-year-old leader of facing “deadlocked talks and panic”.

The comments came after Greece’s biggest creditor Germany said the euro zone would give Athens no further aid until it has a more detailed list of reforms and some are enacted into law, adding to scepticism over plans presented last week.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Athens had a certain degree of flexibility on which reforms to implement but that they must “add up” to the satisfaction of European partners.

“The question is: can and will Greece fulfil the expectations that we all have?” she said during a visit to Helsinki.

“There can be variation as far as which measures a government opts for, but in the end the overall framework must add up.”

DEBT RELIEF TALKS

A senior official in Brussels on Sunday had dismissed the list as “ideas” rather than a plan but Athens has not said whether it is willing to amend it much further.

Greek and other euro zone officials from the Euro Working Group are due to discuss the reforms at 1500 GMT on April 1, a Brussels source said.

A Greek finance ministry official said the list included a lowered target of 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in proceeds from asset sales this year and a proposal to set up a bad bank with bailout funds returned to the euro zone in February.

Among the scheduled asset sales is a stake in the country’s biggest port, Piraeus, in which China has expressed interest.

The list also estimates Greece can raise 3.7 billion euros this year through audits of bank transfers abroad, TV licence and e-gaming tenders, a value-added-tax lottery scheme, a crackdown on smuggling and the settlement of arrears owed to the state.

That package targets a primary budget surplus of 1.5 pct of national output this year -- compared to a previous target of 3 percent in Greece’s EU/IMF 240 billion euros ($260 billion) bailout -- and growth of 1.4 percent in 2015, down from the bailout target of 2.9 percent, a government official said.

In a potential sign of Greece trying to shift the debate with its lender, Athens also brought up the issue of debt relief on Monday, after saying little on the issue recently although it was a centrepiece of Tsipras’s pre-election campaign.

Tsipras said the lenders had agreed to start debt relief talks in June, when the bailout programme expires. Greece’s public debt reached more than 177 percent of national output last year.

“The solutions are known -- either there will be a haircut or it will be extended, or (repayment) will be linked to an increase in output or exports, or there will be lower interest rates,” Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas told financial daily Naftemporiki.

Despite its cash struggles, Tsipras’s government remains popular with Greeks. A Macedonia University opinion poll for Skai TV shows 55.5 percent of Greeks believe the new leftist-led government’s negotiating strategy is correct, while 27.5 percent say it is wrong.

In Stockholm on Monday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Secretary General Angel Gurria told Reuters debt relief was not under discussion, but also ruled out a Greek exit from the euro zone.

“The suggestion that a country may voluntarily exit the European Union is no longer on the cards,” he said.

Additional reporting by Caroline Copley in Berlin, George Georgiopoulos in Athens and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Writing by Deepa Babington; Editing by Andrew Roche