A Guide To South African Wine

South Africa is home to the Constantia variation of wine which was once said to be one of the best wines available in the world. The wine industry in South Africa dates back to the mid 1600’s, 2nd February 1659 to be precise. In the early days South Africa had trouble competing with inferior countries that offered bigger and better variations but South Africa has something many others lacked in – the ideal climate. A major factor of the end results of wine is decided by the climate, having warm dry weather it allowed the vineyards to remain healthy and active all year round.

If you have ever heard of the variation called Pinotage you have South Africa to thank, it is a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault that has sky rocketed South Africa into the wine industry. This was created in 1925 by a professor at the University of Stellenbosch. In recent studies statistics have shown that South Africa has 100,146 hectares of vineyards in total with 45% targeting red wine production so you can see that they slightly focus on white wine more as it tends to be the most popular out of the two. The most popular wine to be produced is Chenin Blanc with around 19% of vineyards making it.