Soweto aims to develop taste for wine

"Wine is discerning, aspirational, sophisticated," said Thami Xaba, one of the festival's organisers.

"Black people now are enlightened. People are educated. We have to dispel the myth that [black] people don't like wine. It just hasn't been available before."

Drawing on black-owned wine labels, such as Ses'fikile, Yamme and Black Grape, the organisers say the Soweto festival marks a turning point for South African vineyards which, despite rising popularity overseas, have yet to make inroads into the huge black domestic market.

"[The] establishment always believed that the majority of South Africans are beer drinkers. We'd like to prove them wrong," said Gavin Pieterse, of the South African Wine Industry Trust, which aims to promote more black involvement in the country's wine industry.

More than ten years after the end of apartheid, the wine industry remains dominated by white vintners.

While exports soared with the end of South Africa's international isolation, the industry has faced new competitive challenges, as South Africa's rand has more than doubled in value against the dollar since the end of 2001.

Organisers say the Soweto Wine Festival is the industry's first concerted effort to woo domestic black drinkers - who could number tens of millions - and to promote black wine growers in developing their brands.

"We need to demonstrate that this is not an industry just for the few," Mr Pieterse added.

Soweto - a vibrant set of black townships outside Johannesburg far from the wine-producing regions of the Western Cape - is regarded as a trendsetter for South Africa's new black middle class and the perfect testing ground for South Africa's black wine market.

"It is a market that is still untapped," said Vukile Mafilika, the chairman of the newly formed South African Black Vintners Alliance.

"It used to be taboo for a family to sit down and drink wine together, but with modernisation that is changing."