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It’s been a long time coming.
I’m thrilled to see an increasing number of interesting, modern and fresh South African wine landing in our BC market. For too long, most of the selection sold in this province has nothing to do with what is actually happening in vibrant South Africa. There are some exceptions (and some brave importers), but overall our wine worldview of the wines of RSA is pinhole sized at best, and industrially dominated at worst.
I recently had the privilege of sharing some of these exciting wines with interested trade and consumers, first at Vancouver’s indy-insider Top Drop, and a few weeks later at Victoria Wine Festival. Over the course of a couple of hours and a few dozen wines, we tasted and chatted about the vintners, wines and terroir of South Africa, the wine region that I consider one of the most exciting on the planet right now.
Why now? Though South Africa has been making wine for more than 350 years, it’s only been very recently that the country has been afforded the freedom, quite literally, to fully realize those hundreds of years of experience. Remember it was only in 1994 that the country became a democracy, liberating the wine industry as well as the people. These past two decades of freedom have opened up the wine world to South Africa, and vice versa. For the first time, growers and winemakers were able to travel outside the country, learn, experience and taste. Wine export and import shackles relaxed, allowing for the flow of information as much as for wine. Forget outdated “New World” thinking, and focus on “New Wave” thinking. The golden era is now.
I wrote about Cape Wine Discoveries in detail on WineAlign earlier this year, so you can familiarize yourself with the regions, players and themes to watch for over the coming months there. In the meantime, here are some of the wines currently on shelves in British Columbia that you should look for.
