Although South Africa is counted amongst the New World wine producers, the first grapes were pressed for wine at the Cape, nearly 350 years ago, in 1659 under Jan van Riebeeck. He had come to the Cape in 1652 to establish a settlement on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.
The first vines arrived in 1655 imported from France, the Rhineland and Spain. These were planted in the Company's Gardens, but Van Riebeeck also planted 1,000 vines at his own farm, Boscheuvel. His successor, Simon van der Stel, established his own farm on the lower slopes of the Steenbergen in Constantia. This was the origin of the famously historic sweet wines of Constantia.
For most of the 20th century, the local wine industry was controlled by the KWV or the Kooperatiewe Wijnbouwers Vereeninging Beperkt van Zuid-Afrika. Founded in 1918 to represent the interests of wine farmers and regulate the stable growth of the Cape's wine industry, it was privatised in 1997, allowing for the deregulation of the industry.
With political reform and the advent of democracy in 1994, there was an influx of financial and intellectual capital into the wine industry. Viticulturists began playing a far more prominent role and producers became keenly aware of the need to focus on noble cultivars, to use superior plant material and they also began adopting to the needs of the international markets.
Even though South Africa has been present on the world markets for no more than a decade-and-a-half - the country's wines consistently earn positive attention. They also win prestigious awards on showcases such as the International Wine & Spirit Competition and International Wine Challenge in London, Vinexpo in France, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles in Europe, S'lections Mondiales des Vins in Canada, as well as on other events. Once these Governors showed that successful large-scale grape cultivation was possible, other free farmers followed suit. Vineyards were planted more extensively a generation later, when the French Huguenots began arriving from 1688 onwards, fleeing religious persecution.
Constantia vintners placed a premium on quality rather than quantity, attending their vines with care, and thus differentiating them from wines produced elsewhere.
The Cape became famous for its Constantia dessert wines. By the late 18th century they were being served in Europe to the nobility. Such was their renown that Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Baudelaire wrote about them.
By the late 19th century and early 20th century, German and Italian immigrants began settling at the Cape, introducing winegrowing and winemaking traditions of their own.
