In the northern hemisphere, grapes are being planted, and are ripening, in all manner of previously unimaginable locations. In the southern hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand have nowhere left to go, but in South America, Patagonia is seeing more and more vines.
What about Africa? The southernmost point of the African continent is not the Cape of Good Hope but Cape Agulhas, about 100 miles to the east, where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean. Because of the unpredictable currents and rocky coastline, it has long been notorious among sailors. In the 17th century, one Cape Town racketeer, Olof Bergh, would have fires lit to mislead ships so that they ran aground and could be looted. It is a wild, sparsely populated land that, thanks to the ocean winds, has some of the continent’s coolest conditions.
High-profile South African wine writer Michael Fridjhon maintains that South Africa has been less affected by climate change than most wine regions because of cooling influences from Antarctica but this hasn’t stopped wine producers planting vines on Cape Agulhas.
Wine — communion wine, that is — was first made here in the 19th century in the village of Elim by Moravian missionaries. The first vines of the modern era, a small trial block, went into the ground in 1996 on the Zoetendal estate. (Zoetendal has, for the moment, switched much of its focus to tourism. I tasted a range of Cape Agulhas wines at the neighbouring Black Oystercatcher wine farm on Mother’s Day and Sean Petersen of Zoetendal had to dash back for lunch service.)
Those early vines thrived sufficiently to encourage more substantial plantings. In 1997, buccaneering Cape wine producer Bruce Jack and vineyard owner Francis Pratt planted vines for The Berrio label, followed a year later by local farmers, the Human family, with wines that would be labelled Black Oystercatcher. They were helped and encouraged by Abrie Bruwer of the much more established Springfield Estate in Robertson, 50 miles over the mountains to the north. Bruwer would land his light aircraft on the airstrip in front of Black Oystercatcher, once the cattle had been chased off. Eventually, Cape Town flying clubs would combine a sortie to Agulhas with a wine-buying trip.
The very first Agulhas label, Land’s End, emerged in 2000, based on Zoetendal grapes. The grapes were shipped to Stellenbosch to be vinified and the label owned by a syndicate of winemakers, a landowner and an accountant. Over the years, ownership and winemaking location has changed but Land’s End wine, with its eye-catching picture of the Cape Agulhas lighthouse, demonstrated that it can produce excellent Sauvignon Blanc. As Hannes Meyer, then of Lomond winery, told me, “Sauvignon Blanc from here is unique — thiol-driven [roughly, “smoky”]; not ripe, green tropical fruit but white stone fruit, maybe kiwi too; chalky and mineral with beautiful natural acidity.”
Meyer, with considerable experience of making wine in warmer Cape regions, said that Agulhas wines didn’t require intervention to add freshness to fermenting grapes: “In Stellenbosch, we bought a pallet of tartaric acid every year, but we’ve never added one gram of acid here.”
Tides are turning for the wine industry despite constrained environment
Not that Agulhas wine production is without its challenges. According to Meyer, “It’s extreme winemaking because the weather varies so much. This year, 2023, has been the toughest ever — there’s been so much rain. But at least we can pick quite early and make great wine even at 13 to 13.5 per cent alcohol.” As one might expect in such a cool region, most Agulhas alcohol levels are modest by South African standards.
Nomenclature and the choice of appellation in the region is a bit confusing. Some producers use the district name Cape Agulhas — sometimes just Agulhas — while others use the name of the Elim ward within that district for wines whose grapes come from within its boundaries. The region’s promotional body, founded in 2019 and now with 14 members (see story below) is known as the Agulhas Wine Triangle. And some of these produce wines from grapes sourced a little further afield that have to be labelled Cape South Coast.
The Nieuwoudt family’s Cederberg estate is hundreds of miles north-west of Cape Agulhas, yet so impressed was David Nieuwoudt by the quality of Sauvignon Blanc grown here that he established the Ghost Corner range of Cape Agulhas wines. And such is his winemaker Jean Nel’s belief in what he calls South African wine’s “best-kept secret” that he was even prepared to get up at 3am to drive to Black Oystercatcher to show me his wines.
But, like a number of Cape Agulhas producers, he has diversified into red-wine production, specifically that of refined Syrah. These wines resemble Syrah from the northern Rhône, the grape’s European home, more than anything from warmer parts of South Africa or Australia, where it is called Shiraz.
Of the 33 Cape Agulhas wines I was shown in May, 20 were Sauvignon Blancs, one was Black Oystercatcher’s White Pearl Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc blend, seven were Syrahs and one was a Chardonnay. I have not included in this tally the very different wines of Sijnn and Olivedale, which are grown one and a half hours’ drive east in a very different terroir on the Breede river. The climate there in Malgas is much drier, just 250mm of rain most years, with more complex, stonier soils. Sijnn was established in 2003 by Cape wine producer David Trafford and his then UK importer Simon Farr “in the middle of nowhere” and produces exciting, ageworthy red and white blends quite unlike wines made anywhere else.
According to Sijnn’s estate manager Charla Bosman (no relation to the wine family of the same name), Malgas is cooler than Stellenbosch and Swartland but warmer than most of Agulhas. “We’re the extreme in this triangle.”
It would be remiss not to mention one other distinguishing feature of this haunting landscape. The Nuwejaars Wetlands Special Management Area comprises 46,000 hectares on the Agulhas Plain that have been donated by 25 local farmers for conservation. Alien vegetation has been cleared and native species of flora and fauna encouraged. Buffalo and hippo have been reintroduced, and of the 1,850 plant species found here, many are unique to the area, as are some of the birds. Until the 1990s, floods and wildfires were common but this is a fine example of farmers fighting the effects of climate change cooperatively. All of which should provide a long term future for tourism — and for the region’s distinctively fine Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah.
