South Africa’s Ongoing Wine Revolution

When South Africa emerged from nearly a half century of apartheid in the early 1990s, its wine producers stepped up to the international plate with two strikes against them. Twenty-plus years later, they have dug themselves out of their early hole and prospered.

The Bad Old Days

Depending on how you look at it, South Africa is either the oldest New World wine region or the newest Old World area. The Cape region’s first wines were produced by the Dutch East India Company in 1659 and many of the area’s most famous wine estates were making wine by the early 1700s. But following the phylloxera epidemic in the late 19th century many of the Cape’s vineyards were replanted with high-yielding varieties like Cinsault. A huge wine glut ensued.

Then, during the dark decades of apartheid, the wine industry suffered from sanctions that kept their wines out of the U.S. and many other important export markets. South Africa’s wine farms had little incentive to produce wines that could compete in a global setting. In fact, most of the country's grape growers simply sold their fruit to co-ops, who turned it into either distilled alcohol or sherry and port. Its winemakers, who rarely traveled internationally, were out of touch with new developments in the world of wine.

Moreover, the Cape’s producers had trouble even getting the raw materials needed to bottle real wine—basic materials such as high-quality farming equipment, corks and even bottles. More important, the country’s vines were generally beset with viruses, and local nurseries were in no position to remedy the situation because they did not have easy access to clean stock from abroad. Vineyards literally had to be replanted every 15 to 20 years, so the stock of old vines in the most commercially important regions like Stellenbosch and Constantia was very low.

South Africa, despite its great head start at making wine, had virtually fallen off the world’s wine map. And with the end of apartheid and the lifting of sanctions in 1991, the U.S. market was suddenly flooded with mostly low-end and decidedly mediocre wine from South Africa.