History of the South African Wine Industry

On the 2 February 1659, Jan van Riebeeck, the first commander of the Cape wrote in his diary: "Today, praise be to God, wine was made for the first time from Cape grapes." Vines were planted three years after his arrival in the Cape in 1652.

In 1679, Simon van der Stel became governor of the Cape, and the farmers were encouraged by him to grow grapes. As it took three to four years for vines to come to fruition, this was a daunting request. Nevertheless, eight short years later a half a million vines were growing in Stellenbosch, Cape Peninsula, Paarl, and Franschhoek.

In 1688 the French Huguenots arrived. Their appreciation of quality wine had a significant effect on the wine industry.

By 1806 when the British occupied the Cape, South African wines were being sought after in Europe. The wine trade grew extensively with the British granting preferential tariffs to Cape wine during the war against France. However these were abolished in 1861 and the wine industry collapsed.

In the late 1890's, phylloxera disease further devastated the industry. A resistant rootstock was introduced and once soon the wine industry had wine in excess of their needs. In the 1900's, co-operative cellars were formed and in 1918 farmers formed a member organization named the Co-operative Wine Farmers' Association of South Africa, more commonly known as KWV. It helped control sale and disposal of product for all its members, assuring them of an adequate income and purchasing any excess product to be used for distilling. By 1924 the government offered their support to the organization and all the producers joined it.

Cold fermentation was introduced in 1957, which lead to the popularity of semi-sweet wines. In 1973 variety designations were incorporated on the bottle, resulting in varietal and classical wines gaining in popularity.