Wine Country

By Peter Hawthorne

Today, God be praised, wine was pressed at the Cape for the first time."

So reads the Feb. 2, 1659, entry in the diary of Jan van Riebeeck, leader of the Dutch East India Co.'s settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. His words were written just five years after European vines were first planted at the southernmost tip of Africa. By the 18th century, South African Muscats were being served in Europe's royal houses; Napoleon drank a bottle a day during his exile on St. Helena. Jane Austen prescribed Cape Constantia wine for the brokenhearted Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. Though listed as products of the New World, Cape wines are being rediscovered today as modern extensions of a historic Old World legacy.

Cape Town, South Africa's parliamentary capital, already has its place among the world's notable tourist destinations. But few foreign visitors know that hidden behind the massive, flat-topped Tafelberg (Table Mountain) that overlooks the city is another world. A 45-minute drive from Cape Town will place you amid European scenery, blue mountains, farm boundaries of fir and wattle, wide sheltered valleys and a climate that is virtually Mediterranean. The Paarl ("pearl" in Afrikaans) region, largest of the country's vineyard areas, is at the southern-hemisphere latitude equivalent of Spain's renowned Sherry region. Visitors to Constantia, Paarl and Stellenbosch have no difficulty recalling parts of France, Italy, Bavaria, Switzerland and even California's Napa Valley.

Martin Moore, winemaker at Groot Constantia, a working farm since 1685, is determined to re-create those fabulous red Muscats of the past. Along with a number of other wine estates whose histories go back more than 300 years, Groot Constantia is a national monument. Museum pieces in their own right, many of the stately, whitewashed Dutch-style farm buildings, with thick walls and high ceilings of oak and teak, are tasting rooms.

South Africa's break from its apartheid past has not only opened the doors to world recognition; it has also put the country firmly on the international travel map. Newly plunged into global markets, the Cape wine industry has expanded its traditional, highly regulated, conservative marketing base and drawn in Germans, French, Swiss, Italians. Russians and Californians as investors in South African grapes. Some of the leading Cape estates now boast European winemakers; Zelma Long and Phil Freese, well known in Sonoma, Calif., are in a joint vineyard venture with Michael Back, owner of Backsberg, a top South African estate. At least one prestigious California wine company is hoping to buy a Paarl farm. A score or so of local wine farmers have taken notable steps to democratize what has for centuries been an almost feudal system (historic slave-bell pillars can still be seen on some estates), and are giving their black and colored workers direct shares in the businesses or land to develop.

The renaissance of the wine routes has brought about greater sensitivity to tourists' needs. Country hotels and bed-and-breakfasts measure up to a high standard, and many Cape estates include scenic picnic facilities or restaurants with decent cuisine--mostly European, with some South African touches such as ostrich filet, Cape Malay curry and water-lily and lamb casserole. Service is excellent, and the local wine is abundant, inexpensive and palatable. Several of the score of multistar restaurants are among the country's Top 10. Indeed, the mountain-ringed valley of Franschoek, where French Huguenot settlers arrived 300 years ago, bringing their winemaking skills with them, is something of a gourmet capital.

Then there are the wines. The Cape's staple white is Chenin Blanc, but the Sauvignon Blancs--sometimes oak matured--are achieving high points in world ratings. Locals will say that if you haven't tasted South Africa's distinctive national red, known as Pinotage, a grape cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut, then you haven't yet lived.

--By Peter Hawthorne