Alittle while back, we returned from this year’s wine tour to South Africa. It is a fantastic wine country and on-site you experience what a dynamic country it is with lots of exciting things happening, e.g. a new unique white grape called chenel (chenin blanc x ugni blanc), or the wine-growing area that is expanding north to Swartland and Tulbagh, or pinotage that today delivers excellent wines, or MCC South Africa’s top-class sparkling wine, or…
Here are some recommendations that can give you a little taste of today’s dynamic South Africa. Rather than giving you specific wines, we give you the names of producers that you can go looking for:
- Gabriëlskloof – in Walker Bay with Peter-Allan Finlayson (of Crystallum fame) as winemaker
- Creation Wine – in Hemel en Aarde, a specialist in pinot noir and chardonnay
- Stark-Condé – a top property in Stellenbosch, also makes the MAN range and since recently, Lievland
- Waterford – an elegant estate in Stellenbosch with, among other things, chenin blanc
- Saronsberg – far north in Tulbagh, also makes sparkling
- Holden Manz – deep in the Franschhoek Valley with a French winemaker
- Aslina – South Africa’s first female black winemaker, has created her own winery, named after her grandmother
There are many more, and several that we visit on our tour may be hard to find in some markets (Springfontein, De Kleine Wijn Koöp, Wildeberg, Dornier…).
The “big names” — Mulderbosch, Boekenhoutskloof, Allesverloren, Boschendal, Kleine Zalze, Badenhorst, Kanonkop, Uitzicht, Mullineux and others — certainly make good wines too. Still, it is often more fun, exciting, personal, and at least as good (and often better priced) with these smaller producers.
Travel: Come on a wine tour to South Africa with BKWine. 2025 tour soon to be launched.
See: See pictures and videos from South Africa 2025 in the wine tours Facebook group.
