South African Wine - Winemaking and Wines

Winemaking and Wines

The winemaking traditions of South Africa often represent a hybridisation of Old World wine making and the new. Since the end of Apartheid, many producers have been working on producing more "international" styles of wine that can be successful on the world market. Flying winemakers from France, Spain and California have brought new techniques and styles to South Africa. In the 1980s, the use of oak barrels for fermentation and ageing became popular. The use of chaptalisation is illegal in South Africa as the country's warm climate makes attaining sufficient sugar and alcohol levels for wine production non-problematic. Winemakers more often have problems with low acidity levels which require supplementation with additional acids like tartaric acid.

Today the focus in the South African wine industry has been on increasing the quality of wine production-particularly with the more exportable and fashionable red grape varieties. Traditionally South African red wines had a reputation for being coarse in texture with rustic flavours. The Afrikaans word dikvoet used to describe these wines meant literally "thick foot". In the vineyards, growers focused yield control for better ripeness while winemakers used modern techniques to create softer, fleshier wines. Temperature control fermentation as well as controlled malolactic fermentation were more widely used as well as less dependency on filtration as a means of stabilisation.