Posts Tagged ‘Chardonnay grape’
Missionvale? ..ever asked yourself for the origin of the name?
June 21st, 2011 | Author: Jessica
Transport yourself back in time and to a once quaint Valley, today a “winetastic” area with outstanding wines of quality like Pinot noir from what is now known as Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, Bouchard Finlayson!
Dutch settlers planted the first vines in South Africa soon after their official landing and colonization of the Cape in 1655. When Jan van Riebeeck released nine Dutch East India servants to become full-time farmers and a year later the first significant slaves arrived from the coast of Guinea and Angola, vines become a more proliferous crop and in 1658 the first wine was produced in the Cape!
When the French Hugenots arrived from 1688, the production of wine really took hold and consequently the character of the South African wine industry has remained largely French orientated.
Only fairly recently has the wine quality improved and only about thirty years ago, South African winemakers started producing high quality Pinot noir. Read the rest of this entry »
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