History of SA Wine

The History Of Wine In South-Africa 

The history of the South-African wine industry goes back as far as the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.

Apparently he recommended to the Dutch East Indian Company that the Cape of Good Hope, had a climate extremely suitable for growing grapes. Therefore as early as 1655 a a shipment of grape vine cuttings, mainly from France, arrived in Table Bay and soon after the first vineyards were planted. Jan van Riebeeck recorded in his diary that he himself, produced the first wine in South-Africa on February 2, 1659. 

 

According to several sources there were more than one million vines planted in the Cape region by the turn of the century, but as can most probably have been expected, as a result of various constraints, such as a lack of experience and knowledge, and the fact that the “wine” farmers were forced to pick the grapes early due do a threat of birds destroying their harvest which obviously resulted in extremely high levels of acidity. The aforementioned was but a few of the problems faced by the emerging South-African wine industry at that stage, but in the end the early results, as recorded, was that most of the wine produced being not of a very good quality, actually apparently pretty bad.

References: 

A brief history of South African wine - by Jamie Goode - 25 November 2013

The History of Wine Making in South Africa: A historical chronology of events and influences http://www.herald.co.uk/local_info/SA_Wine/history.html

History of South African wine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_African_wine