This section covers wine grapes vs table grapes as well as wine styles, the wine grape varietals grown in South Africa as well as warm climate vs cool climate as well as wine aging/oaking.

Wine Grapes:

Why don’t we make wine from Table Grapes?

 

Wine needs special characteristics from grapes and wine grapes provide these.

• Wine grapes are smaller in size compared to table grapes.
• Wine grapes has thicker skins.
• Wine grapes has higher acid levels.
• Wine grapes has more sugar than table grapes.

Wine Styles:

South African wine styles include red, white, rosé, sparkling wines and dessert wines.

What wine grapes are produced in South Africa?

South Africa wine is made from white and red grapes. The wine grapes we are familiar with are Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Savignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc.

Lesser-known grapes include Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Cabernet Franc, Riesling, Malbec and Cinsaut.

There are actually over varietals of grapes grown in South Africa for the wine industry.

See the Wines of South Africa (WOSA) site for the full list of reds and whites or click on South African Varieties page

Pinotage, which is a red grape is a uniquely South African wine grape. It was created by Professor Abraham Perold in 1925 by crossing the Pinot Noir and Cinsaut (Hermitage) grapes.

What is cool vs warm wine region?

Most of the wine produced in South Africa is in the Western Cape Region however we do have vineyards and wineries outside this region. The wine regions are broken into various wine routes eg. Stellenbosch, Paarl, Swartland etc. See full list of Wine Routes

These wine regions fall under cool regions and warm regions with various climates; this means that the entire environment that the grapes grown in can be impacted differently depending on mountains, seas, rivers, lakes and valleys.

To get an idea of what I am talking about. Here’s an example what you can do as an exercise.

• Taste a warm region’s Sauvignon Blanc (Robertson and Paarl) vs a cool region’s Sauvignon Blanc (Elgin and Walker Bay to see which you prefer.
• This will help you to find more Sauvignon Blanc wines from the region you prefer.

What is oaked/wooded?

Wines are matured in barrels or have chips or staves included into the wine tanks; this wood is mostly oak however not all wines are exposed to wood maturation during the wine making process. The wine label will provide info.  Most labels will even indicate the amount of time wine was matured in wood.

Some Chardonnay’s will indicate “unwooded” on the label. This brings me to say that you have to try out a wine to figure out if you like it or not. If you don’t like Chardonnay’s in general, try out the unwooded kind. You may be surprised.

Most reds are oaked however some are not. Once again, read the label to confirm.