South African Wines Better Than Expected

Filed in archive South African Wines , Wine Tasting on May 21, 2006

I found this article from The New Zealand Herald rather timely, at least for me, because just the other night we tasted an interesting bottle of wine from South Africa.

It was a really odd mixture, definitely a blend, even had a screw cap (yes, yes, I know they are supposed to be okay, but still....), but even with all that, my husband and I really liked it.

I'll talk more specifically about that wine in another post, but according to this article, we aren't the only ones that shouldn't be surprised at the taste of South African wines.

From New tastes of South Africa on the way:

South Africans might prefer to think of their wine industry as a relative newcomer to the global stage but it is actually 347 years old and saddled with a history of cheap chenin blanc and patchy pinotage.

So it's surprising to taste South African wines which can foot it with some of the best reds from southern France, Australia and New Zealand.

After tasting 32 modern South African wines in Auckland last month it was evident that country's wine industry has had as much of a makeover as its politics since apartheid ended in 1994.