South Africa
Due to quarantine restrictions, plant cuttings were often smuggled into South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s and many times were misidentified as to what grape variety it really was. A large portion of the Chardonnay plantings from this period turned out to be Auxerrois Blanc. (A similar event happened in the German wine region of Baden during the 1980s.) By the late 1990s, efforts to promote "authentic" Chardonnay helped to increase plantings and by 2004 it was the 3rd most widely planted white wine grape behind Chenin blanc and Colombard. Winemakers in the Western Cape have experimented blending Chardonnay with Riesling and Sauvignon blanc.
Read more about this topic: Chardonnay
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