One of the New World's oldest wine producers dating back to the
17th century & the Dutch East India Company plantings near Table
Moutain, South Africa now produces wine from approx. 100,000ha;
40% less than Bordeaux's total vineyard Since being freed from
the shackles of apartheid in 1994, the South African wine
industry has blossomed into a nation of 4,000 vineyard
smallholders averaging 3ha or less. While this has provided the
perfect canvas for a burgeoning wine tourism industry, it has
been less helpful when it comes to competing on the world stage
where appropriately large wine brands in the mould of Penfolds
are required - but in South Africa wine landscape they remain
conspicuously absent. Regrettably, years of underinvestment
during the KWV cooperative era has resulted in vineyards ravaged
by (leafroll) viruses, perpetuated by a system of grape-growers
continuing to supply a number of wine estates; contributing
perhaps to the infamous Cape fruit character found in far too
many red wines... 60% of Sout