South African Wines

Wine from the "Dark Continent"? To many European and American wine drinkers, this was a strange concept. In fact, there are vineyards all over Africa. Algeria and Morocco have been producing wines for many decades, and modern wine-making has been set up in places like Zimbabwe and Kenya.

But it is down south in the Cape, where climactic and topographic conditions simulate those of the old wine countries, that the continent's finest wines are produced. Today, the best of South African wine is up there with the rest, while in the "easy-drinking" category no one beats us!

History has a way with wine, and the Cape's wine culture, which goes back 350 years, is one that both reflects the country's troubled colonial and apartheid past - but also shines with the potential and expectation of the modern wine world.

From that long history comes a wine tradition of tastes and styles with its roots in the classic "Old World" of France, Germany and Italy, but also an acute awareness of the contemporary consumer, as has been defined by wine-making in the "New World" of California and Australia.

It has often been said that South African wine is in the unique position of straddling both these wonderful worlds.

It offers marketing possibilities that can be harnessed for the challenges of the new global economy. It can offer the wine-drinking world all kinds of new flavour experiences. It can also show the way to handle such sensitive issues as labour relations in the reality of the beautiful Cape winelands.