South Africa in my glass, North Carolina on my mind
Notes from a week in Cape Town and Stellenbosch
I spent last week in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, South Africa to attend my friends’ wedding. It was a celebration, a reunion, and, for me, a field trip—my first visit to a major global wine region since I started seriously studying wine. Picture me as that one kid who is obsessed with sharks on the day your class goes to the aquarium.
One thing I took notes on about throughout my journey was how South Africa’s wine industry relates to North Carolina’s. Here’s a little peek into my journal from the trip (plus some iPhone photos of varying quality).
Quick aside: These observations are very vibes-based. I’m not claiming to know the ins and outs of anything, really. This is just what I saw and what it made me think and feel through the lens of my own experience. Ok, moving on.
On the surface, comparing South Africa and North Carolina wine seems almost silly. South Africa’s wine industry is just so much bigger.
To put it in perspective, I’ll compare it to the only other major region I’ve visited: Italy. Though I know from textbooks that Italy produces significantly more wine than South Africa, the commercialization of it all—both of wine production and the tourism surrounding it—felt more omnipresent in South Africa. Even more so than somewhere like Tuscany, home of Chianti and numerous other world-renowned wines.
There was a noteworthy absence of wine from other parts of the world. Every bar, restaurant, and shop almost exclusively stocked South African wine. Contrast that with North Carolina, where homegrown wines are relegated to small novelty sections of the menu, if they’re represented at all.
Wine’s ubiquity was especially present in Stellenbosch, South Africa’s most famous winegrowing district. Every hill was covered in grapevines and every road was lined with pristine, white-walled wineries open for tastings.
The tiny downtown was filled with wine bars, many of which were owned by the larger wineries in the area.
Rounding out the tourism economy were companies offering transportation from estate to estate by shuttle, cable car, bike, and horse. I even saw one winery with a helicopter landing pad.
I imagine it is similar to Napa: A beautiful destination where it is easy to grow grapes and make quality wine that people visiting from all over the world will understand, enjoy, and buy.
Another similarity—let’s be real—is a history of racism and extreme inequality. In both places, a small percentage of people with a large percentage of money can either: 1) buy land, build a beautiful winery with a nice restaurant overlooking sweeping views, and employ people at a low cost to simultaneously scale large agriculture and tourism operations, or 2) inherit their family’s land and beautiful winery, etc., etc.
It’s a textbook example of a wine industry established via colonization. Literally, the wine textbook I’m studying says, “The greatest degree of success [in developing a wine industry] was initially achieved in the British and Dutch outposts in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.”
It’s interesting to consider where North Carolina wine would be if a wine industry had taken off from early colonial efforts—of which there were many. We have rolling hills, beautiful views, and, to put it mildly, a long history of racism and inequality that has fueled numerous other industries. We just don’t have good growing conditions for most vinifera (European) wine grapes. More on that here.
For better or worse, North Carolina is 200+ years behind South Africa and California in establishing its reputation as a wine region and building an economy around it. And I do think it is for better in a few big ways.
At this stage in our wine industry’s maturity, we still have the option to choose a path that is less extractive and more regenerative for the land and the people here.
Maybe it will be a little bit easier to start down that path, rather than having to work our way over to it against a strong current of entrenched commercial forces? That’s my hope, anyway.
Common Wealth Crush in Virginia is a great example of a model designed to make winemaking more equitable and sustainable in the Southeast.
And there are certainly producers in South Africa who are doing this hard work and taking a forward-thinking approach to their winemaking. We were fortunate to visit one of them, Thistle & Weed, at their small winery in Stellenbosch.
The name Thistle & Weed is a reference to the weeds that grow in the rows between grapevines if the grapes are not constantly sprayed with various chemicals that degrade the surrounding soil. Winemakers Etienne Terblanche and Stephanie Wiid name each of their wines after one of these weeds as an homage to weeds as a signal of a healthy environment.
The winery sources grapes from vineyards across South Africa that employ sustainable practices. We started our tasting with a side-by-side of three Chenin Blancs from three different regions: Swartland, Paarl, and Stellenbosch.
By this point in the trip, I’d tried countless Chenin Blancs (it’s the most planted grape in South Africa), but this was my first opportunity to compare wines made with the same process from the same grape but from different regions. You could really taste the difference between each climate.
I enjoyed learning about some of the places I would not have a chance to visit in a really tactile, memorable way. My favorite was the one from Paarl.
We also tasted red and white blends of grapes you would typically associate with Spain and Portugal, like Verdelho, Albariño, Palomino, Tempranillo, and Alicante Bouschet. The winemakers decided to experiment with these varieties because they thought the grapes would do well as South Africa warms from climate change.
Another wine highlight from the trip was Publik, a Cape Town wine bar that specializes in sustainable and more natural-leaning South African wine. It was across the street from our hotel, so of course we went there two out of four days in the city.
And there were many more great bars, restaurants, and shops where we tried numerous excellent South African wines. Some are pictured below.
All in all, South Africa gave me a lot to think about and even more to drink.
