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
Famous quotes by south africa:
“I don’t have any doubts that there will be a place for progressive white people in this country in the future. I think the paranoia common among white people is very unfounded. I have always organized my life so that I could focus on political work. That’s all I want to do, and that’s all that makes me happy.”
—Hettie V., South African white anti-apartheid activist and feminist. As quoted in Lives of Courage, ch. 21, by Diana E. H. Russell (1989)