South Africa
South Africa has a rich history of grape cultivation and wine production
dating back to the 1600s. Actually, the exact date of the founding of South
African wine occurred on February 2, 1659. It was Jan Van Riebeck, a Dutch
settler and founder of Cape Town, who wrote in his diary: "Today, praise
be to God, wine was pressed for the first time from Cape grapes."
With
a phenomenal landscape, South Africa’s Western Cape is a natural place
to grow grapes. Climatic and topographic conditions make favorable growing
conditions. Among the top varietals most notably of South African origin
are Pinotage and Chenin Blanc, also referred to as Steen. Pinotage was 
created
by Professor Perold in 1925 at Stellenbosch University, when he crossed
Pinot Noir with Cinsault (also called Hermitage) in an attempt to develop
a grape with the elegance of the former and yet the hardiness of the latter.
South Africa’s history of apartheid and world-wide embargoes greatly
affected the wine industry. Apartheid, which means separateness in Afrikaans,
was a system of legalized racial segregation enforced by the National Party
government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994.
The end of Apartheid meant the end of exclusionary policies such as restriction of ownership of farmland by non-whites.
Since the end of apartheid, the South African wine industry has grown to become one of the largest suppliers of wine in the world. A major export, the Western Cape has become an area that the government has focused on to redress the discriminatory policies of the past. The government has pledged to redistribute 30% of the country’s land to black South Africans by 2014.
