South Africa Comes to Terms with Its Past & Charts a New Way Forward

Class transcript:

Welcome one and all. Happy Sunday to you wherever you are enjoying this get-together. Today, we are thrilled as always to have you. It is particularly hot in the Rebler's Hour studio, in the glassed-in soundproof box that, you know, we are broadcasting from. So if I'm dripping sweat by the end of this program, please do not be concerned for my safety and livelihood. It's just really hot outside. At any rate, we are thrilled to have you all in the mix, and honored, very excited by popular demand, to be featuring South African wines. We had a survey that many of you graciously replied to a couple weeks ago, and I was curious what subjects we had yet to address that you wanted to see us take on. And so we are excited to have you.

And by far, I would say South Africa was the clear winner. And naturally, I shifted and we did fizzy red wines the following week. But we are giving the people what they want today and talking all about South African wine. Needless to say, we're talking about the eighth largest wine-producing country in the world today. Steeped in all sorts of really fascinating ancient and modern history, you know. Deeply tragic modern history. And this is enough material to keep us busy for weeks upon end. But, you know, for the sake of this lesson, we're going to give it a broader overview. And, you know, the wines themselves are equally stunning. And the industry itself has evolved so much in a matter of mere decades.

We are celebrating the South Africa wine industry with no fewer than six wines as part of what we at least were selling. Through our online store. I know many of you are participating remotely and drinking other things. But always get the question about, you know, what should I be drinking when? You know, depending on how you provisioned, obviously it would start white before red. You know, among the whites, I would give the hierarchy as Savivy, Chard, and Chenin. Kind of in that order. Among the reds, I would list the hierarchy as Sanso, Pinotage, and Cabernet Sauvignon. In that order. But, you know, again, I think the most important thing when you're drinking wine is to enjoy it. And to, you know, be able to taste one wine against the next really gives you a full sense of, you know, what you're dealing with.

And it can be really, you know, incredibly illuminating. Even in the case of our first exercise with two apparently divergent grapes in Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc. But we will touch on that, you know, in a little bit. Zoe, did you want to add anything? No, not at all. Not at all. Okay. I thought you were raising your hand. We are thrilled, as always, to have Zoe Nystrom with us in the mix and the wines behind her broadcasting from elsewhere in our Riddler's Hour home studio, Tail Up Goat Wine School. Coming at you. We're going to kick it off without further ado. Thank you all again for joining us. You know, this has been a wonderful adventure for me. We just reopened our mothership, Tail Up Goat, for implementation.

We have a three-person dining. We have a wine store. We have all sorts of ways that we are serving our community in the midst of this pandemic. And it has not been easy. But, you know, I just thank you all for your messages of support. You know, for those of you who join us sporadically or, you know, every week, you know, your emails, your shows of support, when you stop by the store, you know, behind the mask, you know, what have you, have been invaluable. You know, as we have worked our way through this. So thank you so much for the enthusiasm that you bring to these regular get-togethers. And thank you to all the people in unlikely places who have made this a part of their Sunday routine.

Without further ado, one of our regular viewers, Michaela, suggested a poem for today. And I thought it was absolutely brilliant. You know, I was going to dig deeply into the South African canon. This is from an Englishman, but it seems very apropos. Because it was a favorite of mine. John Lewis, who sadly passed away this weekend. The so-called conscience of Congress. The last surviving speaker at the March on Washington who spent his whole life getting into good trouble for the sake of changing the world for the better. Michaela told me that one of his favorite poems was the one that I am about to read you here. Which is, you know, couldn't be more appropriate for the current moment. So without further ado, I give you William Ernest Henley, Victorian author, and Indictus.

Out of the night that covers me, black as a pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I had not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloodied and unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade. And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. And, you know, what a perfect poem for someone who, you know, was knocked unconscious, you know, for support of his cause once upon a time.

John Lewis, the son of sharecroppers, whose parents were actually upset at his initial, you know, quote unquote, rabble rousing. They didn't think it was respectable for him to be. You know, getting arrested at lunch counters for, you know, fighting segregation. They eventually, you know, saw, you know, that he was in the right. But, you know, that spirit of perseverance is something that, you know, serves all well. And, you know, making wine, you know, certainly the stakes are vastly lower. But, you know, South Africa is at, you know, this very unique moment in its history. And, you know, I think in order to talk about South Africa in general, it's a very unique moment. And, you know, when you think about African wine, you have to talk about the modern history of South Africa.

They are too closely entwined. South Africa made really shitty wine until the fall of apartheid. And in many senses, you know, what was necessary for South Africa politically, racially, you know, also had this effect of elevating the wines, which essentially, you know, which, you know, certainly isn't, you know, the, you know, kind of, a signal, you know, effect of, you know, the post-apartheid movement or era. But, you know, I think it's important to note that, you know, very often, you know, those things will go hand in hand, social advancement and the elevation of a particular industry in terms of winemaking. So we're going to talk about, you know, South African history as a whole. You know, we're going to touch on, you know, the troubled racial history of winemaking in South Africa.

Just because, you know, I think it's important to speak in terms of those hard times. And, you know, in as much as we drink wine, you know, to settle the nerves, you know, I don't and I have never wanted it to be escapist. You know, I want to know how my wine is made. I want to know who is making it. I want to know how, you know, this juice comes to the glass. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum any more than a hamburger does, any more than anything else that comes to us in this world. And, you know, we should be mindful consumers. And, you know, I don’t think it makes the enjoyment of this any less rich to know those things.

So falling deeper down that rabbit hole, being more socially conscious about, you know, what we eat and drink, you know, for me, makes the journey much more enjoyable. Most people start the history of modern South Africa in 1652. Jan van Riebeeck is a Dutch physician basically looking for an outpost on the way to the Dutch East India colonies. So that sailors can procure all sorts of citrus fruit and provisions that will ward off scurvy. It's important to note that South African history, you know, does not begin in 1652. We often in the wine trade speak in terms of the old and new world. But South Africa blows that all up. South Africa, you know, is very much older than the quote unquote old world. The wine world is very Eurocentric.

Our old world is the old world vis-à-vis wine. Which is, you know, essentially in terms of wine. In terms of fine wine, a European creation. That is what is old to us. Human history stretches much further in South Africa than it does Europe. Than it does, you know, anywhere else, almost anywhere else outside of, you know, small corner of Ethiopia in the world. And I think that's, you know, really important to acknowledge as we set out on, you know, this particular lesson. But insofar as wine is concerned. The Dutch were the first to plant grape vines. They did that almost immediately after 1652. Insofar as, you know, seven years later, Jan van Riebeck, the very same, was celebrating the first vintage of wine. And they're in Cape Town.

So I think it's, you know, necessary to orient ourselves for the sake of South African geography here as we embark on our initial lesson. So Cape Town is. Right here. It is on the western corner of the southern end of the African continent. And when the Dutch settled there, it was populated by an indigenous group of peoples collectively known as the Khoisan. That's actually two larger groups of indigenous Africans. But they are distinct from the larger family of Bantu-speaking peoples, which are, you know, kind of like the major ethnic groups in the eastern part of Africa. And, you know, it's important to, you know, note those, you know, differences, you know, within, you know, kind of the, you know, South African, you know, demographic groups.

It should be said that, you know, wine quickly took off as a commercial product in South Africa. And, you know, as early as the late 17th century, subsequent Dutch governor of South Africa, Simon van Scheele, just south of Africa, just south of Cape Town, establishes a famous estate called Constantia in 1685. And by the end of the 18th century, Constantia, which you can see right here in yellow, very small, just outside of Cape Town, has established its reputation in Europe. So, you have a couple centuries of South African wine on the international market attracting attention. Napoleon wants to drink it. Josephine wants to drink it. Everybody's drinking South African Constantia, you know, very fashionable in the 18th and into the 19th centuries. So they have success very early with their commercial winemaking industry.

If you flash forward into the British era, South Africa becomes the source of a lot of bulk wine, cheaper bulk wine for the British market. But that market really kind of falls apart. In the late 19th century, with the kind of initial kind of deprivations of the phylloxera bite, which devastates the vineyards there as it devastated the vineyards of Europe. And then the British market opened itself to more proximate sources of wine like France and that part of the industry. And then, you know, the subsequent, you know, global depression and World War II. So that area's a little bit more terrible. And they're still coming closer to life as sort of like a bunch of soft Lindsay - right white little wine growers nowadays.

And they really upheld the trade of great growing and winemaking for smaller, almost exclusively white Afrikaans growers in South Africa throughout the 20th century. It's important to note that the codified system of racial segregation that would co-evolve into racial segregation, less into apartheid was already very much in place. Constantia, you know, was made by slaves. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1830s, but those workers were very much tied to the land through a equally cruel system in its own way called the dop system or the top system, whereby vineyard workers from the late 19th century through the almost modern era, through the 1990s, were paid in wine in addition to or in lieu of their proper wages and that, you know, has really into the modern era devastated a lot of the indigenous black African communities of vineyard workers throughout the country, but chiefly in the Western Cape where most of the wine is from.

Apartheid itself was institutionalized as a system in 1948. It was essentially impossible for native black Africans to own vineyard land prior to that, but apartheid systematizes it across the board. It is not undone until South Africa's first free election in 1994 and we are very much living in the wake of that, you know. It very much reminds me of, you know, the old Faulkner quote, you know, the past isn't dead; it isn't even past, you know. That is certainly true of our, you know, racial history stateside and, you know, it is very true in South Africa. About 2% if that of the vineyard acreage in South Africa is owned by, you know, native black South Africans, you know. So, you know, the wine industry in South Africa is very much dominated by white Afrikaans, but, you know, slowly but surely, that is changing and, you know, we want to celebrate that change here for the sake of this class and, you know, you know, celebrate the ways in which the industry is, you know, forward-thinking in spite of, you know, this very tragic history. So, you have questions? Yeah, we just have some guests that are stuck in our waiting room and I'm not a host. Apologies. Oh, that's entirely my fault.

Sorry, everyone. Thanks for your patience. Apologies, everyone. We are coming late to class. It is 4.15. You missed 15 minutes worth of a short history of South Africa's wine trade and the legacy of apartheid in South Africa vis-a-vis its wine trade. I apologize to shut you out of class. Thank you to all of you who, you know, have been here. Thank you to all of you who, you know, stayed in the mix. I thought I had disabled the waiting room. That turned out not to be the case. Again, thank you all for your patience. Just to bring you up to speed, we're talking South Africa. I think, you know, a couple critical points to make about the, you know, kind of system of winemaking there is that there was this system by which the native Black African vineyard workers were paid in wine, which, according to the modern era, has persisted much longer than it should.

It was technically outlawed in 1960. But really, that, you know, eradication of what was called the DOP system or top system wasn't fully enforced until after the fall of apartheid with South Africa's first pre-elections in 1994. And you have this legacy of, you know, alcoholism in those communities and impoverishment. And, you know, the workers to this day are, you know, they're, you know, they're, you know, advocating for themselves because the wages to do that vineyard labor in South Africa are some of the lowest in the world, you know, adjusted for, you know, you know, cost of living and all those other things. And, you know, it is a country where almost a quarter of the people are unemployed. You know that said, there are these harbingers of change and these rays of hope.

And, you know, I want to speak to those as well today. So we're going to start off with a couple of wines. And they are from a really lovely woman named Nitsika Biella. Nitsika is super cool. Zoe and I are both kind of obsessed with her. Nitsika is the first black African woman to make wine in South Africa post-apartheid. And she has her own brand. And her brand is named after her grandmother. It is called Aslina. And I'll flash a picture of Nitsika here. And, you know, I don't, you know, think people understand, you know, just how arduous her journey was. So Nitsika, who you see here, is from Zululand. So she is from a rural, very rural South Africa.

For those of you who just joined, important to note that almost all the winemaking in South Africa, happens in the Western Cape. So it happens in the western side, southwestern side of the country, close to the ocean, where you get this cooling influence of these currents that sweep north, and these winds that sweep north from Antarctica. And, you know, these are not, you know, predominantly the kind of historical domains of the major ethnic groups in modern South Africa, which are, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, predominantly Bantu-speaking people, which tend to be from, you know, further east in South Africa. Western South Africa historically was the domain of the Khoisan, two separate ethnic groups.

And Nitsika is from the Zulu lands of really kind of like central east South Africa. And she had no idea she was getting into winemaking. I love her story. So she took a scholarship to the University of Stellenbosch. And the University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch is the most famous region in modern day South Africa for wine. It historically was noted for Chenin Blanc, but now noted for red varietals, chiefly Cabernet Sauvignon. She makes a banging one. And Nitsika, she took this scholarship because she wanted to get out of her village, which, you know, didn't have, you know, running water in many instances, didn't have electricity. And the scholarship was her ticket. She didn't really care what the scholarship was for. She was going to enology school in this foreign land, dominated by white Afrikaans.

Stellenbosch is very much the dominion of white Afrikaans. The University of Stellenbosch under apartheid was called the cradle of apartheid because it educated so many of the national party's leaders in that era. And, you know, not only is she, you know, going into this kind of, you know, essentially foreign country, but she's being instructed in Afrikaans, which is just maddening. So she's learning winemaking in a language that's not her own, that she's never really actively studied. And, you know, she'd never tasted wine before. She says the first time she tasted wine, she didn't like it at all. She thought it was sour. She thought it was gross. She said it took her, you know, a few years of tasting to develop an appreciation for it. And she had this ah-ha moment with a few local Syrahs.

And then it grew from there. But winemaking was her ticket out. And she, you know, she took it and she ran with it. And, you know, I really adore that. So, you know, let's talk about, you know, the broader, you know, kind of taboo of South African wine in the context of her wines, because we have a Sauvignon Blanc and a Cabernet Sauvignon. And I talked about tasting these wines against one another. And it seems like a weird pairing, Cab Sav and Savy B. But it should be said that they are actually related grapes. So Cabernet Sauvignon is actually the offspring of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. And we're going to taste the Sauvignon Blanc first here. Nitsiki says that she likes a more kind of lush tropical style for the sake of her Sauvignon Blanc.

A portion of the fruit here comes from Elgin, which is closer to Overberg, closer to the ocean. The closer you get to ocean in South Africa, the cooler the environment. And Sauvignon Blanc is a grape that likes, you know, those cooling influences. That maintains some of the kind of like saline, vegetal, grassy tones in the wine. But she likes, you know, some of the full fruitiness that this wine can pick up in a region like Stellenbosch as well. Nitsiki works with purchased fruit. As a starting winemaker, you know, whether you're, you know, a native black South African woman or, you know, me trying to make wine, you know, here, it is a lot easier to work with purchased fruit than to buy land. It is just really important.

It's really expensive and hard to buy your own vineyard acreage. So she's working with purchased fruit and also give you some more freedom from vintage to vintage about what you work with. You know, she wants her wines to speak to a sense of place. She says, 'I like to let the wine do the talking about its origins.' And, you know, she has obviously gained a lot of traction as this trailblazing figure in South Africa. But she's not alone. There's a growing cater of native South African women in particular that are at the Van Gogh. So I think this is about that. So I think it's a great point, this idea of this, you know, of, you know, this movement that is diversifying the industry there.

And, you know, we want to support that as much as we can. And, you know, she has said, though, that, you know, she wants her wines to stand on their own. You know, she's tired of people talking about her as the first, you know, black South African woman making wine. She just wants, you know, people to say, you know, those are cracking wines. You know, she wants people to taste her Sauvignon Blanc and think, you know, damn, that's a great Sauvignon Blanc. And, you know, you know, the fact that she's making it, you know, is, you know, ice cold, you know, that's a great, you know, that's something that's very important to me on that proverbial cake.

But, you know, for me, you get, you know, some of that grassiness and that saline quality that, you know, people like at Asabi Bee, but there's a full fruitiness about it as well. And that's very emblematic of a South African style. So South Africa is warmer than a lot of parts of the old world. You know, the growing season, it's a little more extreme. It gets a little hotter. It's very moderate. They tend not to get frost there in the winter just because they have that moderating influence of, you know, both the sea and then, you know, these kind of like inland extremes of heat as well in South Africa. And so, you know, they don't get, you know, this extreme cold. It can get very hot.

But concurrently, you know, they don't get the kind of elongated growing season that some parts of the old world get. So, you know, they tend to get, you know, fuller ripeness in winter. They're offering some of their offerings. And I think that's the case with Sauvignon Blanc. But you know, there's a purity about all these wines that's very different than what you find in, you know, like Australian wine or, you know, some of the wines from California. And I like that dual identity for the sake of the profile – flavor profile of these wines. I think it's like readily apparent in this Sauvignon Blanc. And, you know, for me, this is, you know, whistle clean stainless steel. Both Sauvignon Blanc and Asabi Bee are noted for these chemical constituents called pyrazines, which give you this kind of like green pepper aroma.

And, you know, tasting from a white to red, you know, it would seem that, you know, there's this huge disjuncture, but if you look for that pyrazine component, that green pepper, you're going to find it in both wines if you're drinking these both at home. And I think it's really fun to tease that out, because otherwise they're so different. The Sauvignon Blanc only sees stainless steel. This sees over a year in oak. Nitsiki doesn't specify, but I would imagine that some of it is new. But it's a hugely elegant wine. You know, it's a wine that wears the oak really well. It's not as bombastic as a Napa Cab. It doesn't taste like raisins. A lot of South African Cabernet Sauvignon has this like crunchy herbal leaf that I find quite seductive in and of itself.

And, you know, this one definitely evinces that. But just one more quick word before I take a few questions about these wines, about her label. So this is super cool. In her part of the country, this like rural, you know, kind of prefecture in the Zululand, you know, obviously there's no local tradition of winemaking. They do make booze. You know, most cultures, you know, try to get their drink on. The Zulus did that with beer, local beer, and they would ferment it in this vessel. It's called calabash. So this is a traditional Zulu fermentation vessel called calabash. But Ciqui's calabash doesn't contain grain. Naturally, it contains grapes. And, you know, so she sees herself as, you know, working in these European traditions and she lives in, she now lives in Stellenbosch.

She lives in this like, you know, addictive wine making village, in this historic uncloak of white power. You know, but she looks very different. And so, when you try to meet that band of oeuvre, you're going to see that as one of your regulars is very different and she has no desire to go back to Zulu and she's very proud of the life that she has made for herself, but she does want to create these pathways for people, you know, from her community to appreciate, you know, the broader world and, you know, she speaks to this universality that you can find in wine, so you know we're dealing with something that's very Eurocentric in terms of its set of traditions but, you know, in terms of those dimensions of flavor and taste, you know, she talks about wanting to settle into these traditional Zulu dishes with her cabs off and, you know, I love those, you know, kind of strange bedfellows, you know, there's a universality in, you know, enjoying, you know, food and drink that transcends cultures and, you know, once you tap into that, you tap into something innately human that, you know, will allow You connect to anyone, anywhere, regardless of what they look like, and you know she has said that. You know in as much as people in the cellar still come up to her to this day and say, 'You know, you're a Zulu.' You know, you know where's the winemaker like you know she can't be the winemaker you know and as much as that happens she does feel you know the embrace of the community as well and she feels like you know there is this private language this insider knowledge that she's party to and you know she feels the support of that community even in the midst of those, those obstacles you know not to you know diminish them at all. At any rate these are two wines and And it's important to say that, like, you know, this is, you know, a small sliver of the South African wine scene.

But, you know, I really wanted to start with it because it hopefully speaks to, you know, the dynamism of the scene. And I'm just going to quote the World Wine Atlas. Jancis Robinson has really a way, you know, with words at times. And I love the way she kind of positions South Africa. And she says that the finalists in the world's vineyard beauty contests include the Douro, the most of the Greek island, and the Cape of South Africa. It is the white Dutch gabled farmsteads in a sea of vineyard green under the Simonsburg, blue shadowed stacks of granite against the azure sky that tips the scales, an irresistible image of timelessness, which, like so much that seems immutable in this book, conceals tectonic change. In reality, South Africa's people, its vineyards, its cellars, its wine mounds.

And its wines have changed in the past 25 years out of all recognition. And I think that's hugely fascinating. And I know, Zoe, I've said I'm going to give you, you know, the time of day here. And I'm just going to share a couple more images. And, you know, again, big apologies to all of you who, you know, missed the first 15 minutes because even after 17 lessons, I still haven't fully mastered the technology of Zoom. But at any rate, you know, Jancis speaks to this world vineyard beauty contest. And she talks about it. She talked about Simonsburg, which is a mountain on the northern end of Stellenbosch. This is Simonsburg. I mean, shut up. That is stupidly beautiful. You know, I can't imagine getting up every day and working in that environment.

You know, sign me up. You know, when we're thinking about, you know, bastions of, you know, power and, you know, kind of, you know, somewhat, you know, sinister, you know, post-colonialist memes. You know, this is one of like the iconic chateaux in Stellenbosch, you know, you can imagine, and I like the way this photo is positioned because, you know, you're on the outside looking in, and I'm sure to a lot of people, you know, a lot of, you know, native black South Africans outside of the industry or even those inside it, you know, that haven't financially benefited from it, you know, it feels that way. It speaks to a reality. And then, you know, the humanist in me, you know, finds it important to acknowledge what life is like for many of the other people in the mix in Stellenbosch.

So in as much as there are beautiful vineyards, you know, this is what, you know, you know, life is like for many of the native South Africans in the shadow of these vineyards. And, you know, there are, you know, there's a huge housing shortage in Stellenbosch. And, you know, there is conflict between the historic chateau owners and a lot of, you know, native South Africans. Just trying to carve out a life in this place. And, you know, in as much as, you know, I don't want to, you know, bring anyone down, you know, I want to, you know, kind of live with, you know, these uncomfortable truths in the context of the industry there. So what do you have for me? Oh, so you're muted. Epic fail. We are. One more time.

Okay. Apparently after 17 lessons, I can't get it right. I know. I know. I think 18 could be the charm for us. The lucky 18. Where exactly does she source her grapes in the Western Cape? Talking about Eslina, of course. And then what exactly is the relationship between a winemaker when you're buying grapes or you're buying juice? If you could like just go over that Negociant type of a style. Yeah, that's a, that's a, those are excellent questions. So I don't know where exactly her vineyards are, um, she, um, wore a long time for 13 years, cut her teeth at, uh, Stetlikaia, um, uh, which is, uh, a Stellenbosch winery, um, and, uh, you know, she grew, um, in, you know, her profession and her craft as a winemaker, uh, at Stetlikaia, um, and, uh, you know, also developed relationships with growers, um, in the trade.

So, you know, that is very much, you know, necessary to, you know, have those connections, develop those relationships where. You know, you know, the kind of people you develop, you know, to develop, you know, um, that firsthand knowledge that gives you access to good Sauvignon Blanc, good, good Cabernet Sauvignon. Um, I know that occasionally she spikes this with Semillon, which is classic Port Bordeaux. Um, she says online that in this particular vintage, the fruit was from Elgin or Élan. I haven't gotten a definitive, um, you know, pronunciation on that one. And the South African, really Afrikaans accent is, is fundamentally preposterous, kind of like Aussie derivative kind of thing that I have trouble with, and I apologize to any South Africans, um, that are participating here.

Um, it's just a difficult accent as an American for me to master in as much as I'm sure the American accent is, you know, super nasal and, and, you know, horrifying, uh, to you all. But, um, so I don't know exactly where she is. This is just kind of closer to, um, uh, the sea, um, you know, for the sake of this site, um, and this Sabi Bee. Um, and this is further inland within Stellenbosch, which, um, historically was Chenin Blanc country. Uh, but in the modern era. Um, has, uh, come over, um, to Cabernet Sauvignon, uh, in particular, and been really celebrated for its, its Bordeaux blends. Um, but typically, uh, the more quality country producers are buying grapes, um, and, uh, they are making the wine themselves.

Uh, so she shares a production facility, um, just because that's a lot, you know, more economical. Um, and, you know, makes wine, um, at a, um, you know, kind of, uh, you know, just a larger, non-elaborate winery. And she said herself, she doesn't really, you know, have much of an interest in, you know, in the wine industry. And, you know, she, uh, is really into wine and, you know, has a lot of interest in, you know, in owning, uh, land. She would love to have her own proper winery, um, with the restaurant that someone else runs. Um, but, you know, and a tasting room. Uh, but, you know, uh, she, um, you know, is less interested in that. And she likes the freedom that purchasing her grapes give her.

Um, and, you know, historically that model actually is in its own way older than this, um, estate wine model. Historically, um, in most parts of the old world, you know, um, you know, as a small grower, you just sold all your fruit. You know, maybe you made a couple barrels for yourself and your friends, but you sold the fruit and, and some other, um, uh, fruit merchant made the wine and sold it. You know, that was the set of relationships. There was less of a tradition of estate bottling until really after World War II when that kind of changed on a broader level throughout, you know, Europe and elsewhere. What else you got, Jo? Someone has seen some palomino in South Africa and was wondering if you're like a king of sherry, if you have gone down the route in any of your studies.

So, admittedly, I've really enjoyed South African wine for a long time, but I'm no expert. I have not encountered any South African style sherries. There is a South African kind of like quartz industry, and just to cut off the global warming questions at the pass, it should be said that they're playing around a lot with Portuguese varieties, which tend to be very heat resistant and heat tolerant, drought tolerant, because they've had, you know, some recent vintage wines. They've had a lot of passages with really severe drought issues. And so, in parts of, you know, northern South Africa, which puts you closer to the equator, they're playing around a lot with dried grape wines, fortified wines that are starting to rival some of what port does. So, I don't know anything about palomino in South Africa.

I have no doubt that it exists, and I'm excited to taste it one day, but I've read more about, you know, kind of port there, than anything else. All right. Anything else up? No, I feel like we kind of touched it in our first 15 minutes, but if you could just, like, briefly discuss how apartheid has affected the wine trade in South Africa until we go back and watch that. Yeah, so I think, you know, it's inextricable. It's bound up in the history of everything in South Africa. You can't separate it, you know, from the history of the wine trade any more than you can separate, you know, the history in America from, you know, any of our, you know, industries. And, you know, we don't always speak to it.

And, you know, the, you know, the history, obviously, is very different between the two countries. You know, but the legacy certainly endures. I think in South Africa, you know, there's a level of impatience with land redistribution. So, you know, the farmland in particular is owned overwhelmingly by white Afrikaners. Vineyards, you know, about 2% or less, you know, from what I've read, are owned by Native Blacks, Black Africans. And that is very much a legacy of apartheid. Until 1994, in most places, it was illegal for Black Africans to own vineyard land. I don't think most people understand about apartheid that it was also forced segregation. Between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million Black Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated townships or, you know, communes.

You know, so in as much as they are now clamoring for redistribution of land, and naturally, that scares the, you know, shit out of Native, you know, white Afrikaners, farmers who've been on the land for generations, and have witnessed Robert Mugabe dispossess, you know, white Zimbabweans of their land, as much as they're, you know, scared shitless about that, you know, there is, you know, a historical grievance that is still very much unaddressed for the sake of, you know, the economic inequalities that first, you know, kind of persist to this day in South Africa. And there are no easy answers. I think that's really important to, you know, acknowledge when it comes to, you know, the legacies of these oppressive systems, especially with something as trivial as wine, you know, you know, it is really messy.

And, you know, I think, you know, the least of all that we can do as consumers is to, you know, try to understand, you know, those larger historical forces and not be blind to them. And, you know, to support the tzikis of the world and try to make more room for more of them, because she's certainly the exception to the rule. And, you know, Zoey and I have been searching for, you know, not just, you know, black-owned South African wineries, but black-owned, you know, American wineries. And, you know, we've been looking at, you wineries, Mexican-American-owned, you know, wines available in the D.C. market, and they're not, you know, there's a handful. It is, it is deeply sad, you know, to the extent that they exist stateside.

You know, most of them that deal with vinifera grapes, at least, are in California, and the distribution is not great on the, on the East Coast, and, you know, in as much as, you know, we want to, you know, shine a light on these change agents, it's not easy, and, you know, various entry for the sake of, you know, land rights, and, you know, all the classist, racist, gendered bullshit that comes with wine, it's a, it's a high bar, and I think, you know, that is, that is important to acknowledge, and important to tear down in as much as, as we can. So, at any rate, so that, that's a, that's a short recap, hopefully, so, but, you know, just, you know, globally speaking, again, you know, we're talking, you know, 200,000 years of human history in South Africa, you know, European settlement begins, you know, in the middle of the 17th century, South African, South Africa had their first re-election in 1994, you know, and it's just, it is a thin sliver of time, you know, it's just, you know, and, and change, you know, comes much more slowly than we like for the sake of these, you know, larger social, economic, racial forces. Anyway, so, drinking now, a couple of wines from different, more regional regions of South Africa, so, we had a wine from Nitsiki and Aslinka, one of which, was sourced from fruit. So, she's making wine in Stellenbosch, and we'll go back to the map, here, for you all, and kind of do a survey of South Africa's regions. She's making wines in Stellenbosch, which is right here, just a hop, skip, and a jump east of Cape Town, and you saw the cartoonishly beautiful Symmondsburg Mountain there.

There. Selenbasch just looks like that. It is hugely gorgeous and, you know, has a lot of different expositions, very mountainous. South Africa has some of the most ancient soils in the world, mostly granitic, very acidic. 250-plus million-year-old bedrock. It's madness. And there's quite a bit of diversity there as well, which is important to touch upon for these wines. So the Schennen, called Honey Bunch, which scares me, it should be said, sounds like a breakfast cereal. I don't know if I want to drink anything called Honey Bunch. It sounds like a larger, you know, mass-marketed brand that should have some kind of like fair, you know, Winnie the Pooh-like figure on the label with a honeycomb or whatever. But Schennen is the most widely grown, currently grape, in South Africa.

Historically, it dominated plantings. They call it Steen, historically, S-T-E-E-N. And, you know, a lot of Steen, especially in the 20th century, was plonk. It was absolute bollocks. A lot of it went into brandy. A lot of it went into, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know to, um, you know, uh, fortified wine. That's cheap and not worth drinking. But they do have some like older vineyard, um, source material. They have, um, you know, a dozen or so vineyards in South Africa of over a hundred-plus-year-old vines. This is a comparatively young vineyard, but uh, the oldest vineyards on this property, which is in Stellenbosch, Simonsburg, or six, seven, rather, subregiones of Stellenbosch, Simonsburg, is close to Parele.

Um, it's a little warmer, but the slopes of that mountain that you saw earlier, Simonsburg, um, are 123 feet long. Very privileged sites for grape growing and wine making. We're hooked. And again, apologies for pronunciation here. Dutch is just hard. Family-owned producer, second generation, and they, you know, are making a wine here that is dense and concentrated and lives up to the Honey Bunch name. It is rich. It's said, 12 months in neutral oak. You know, part of me wonders how neutral, you know, said neutral oak is. You know, some neutral oak is more neutral than others. The beauty of Shannon is that, you know, even with that richness, Shannon, you know, does a really wonderful job of retaining acid.

So, you know, you get this like real, you know, honey fullness, this baked pear quality out of this wine, this florality. But, you know, it has this acid streak on the back end that's super seductive. And, you know, I think this is a wine that shines in the context of pairing because it has that baby fat that you want for richer dishes, but it has that squeegee brush for the tongue acidity that really kind of, you know, washes things away and makes, you know, for another bite. You know, that's absolutely delightful for the sake of the finish. And then this other one's kind of cool. So, the Vetshoff estate is a historic property that was originally founded by the Dutch.

They're very proud of the fact that they're a third-generation producer, which doesn't sound like a lot, but you know, you're dealing with a relatively young wine culture, post-apartheid in terms of quality-conscious wine making. And, you know, it is notable that, you know, you have a third-generation family making wine. We're in a very different part of South Africa here. So we're well east of Stellenbosch. You can see Robertson here, it's in the larger Breed River Valley area, which is kind of like the Central Valley of South Africa, more of a quantity over quality kind of paradigm there historically. But the cool thing about Robertson is they have quite a bit of limestone. And, you know, for those of you who love Burgundy, Whiteburg in particular, you know that Chardonnay and limestone, you know, are simpatico.

And this doesn't see a whiff of oak, but there's a lushness to it, you know, I think is, you know, very South African, you know, much closer to the equator. And then, you know, you have the terrain you're in, you know, the major growing regions of Europe in the Northern Hemisphere. And that gives it this lushness, this fullness. But there's a purity as well, for the sake of the fact that, you know, it doesn't see any oak to speak of. And I love the texture of this particular offering. You know, I think it's Chardonnay that, you know, the ABC, anything but Chardonnay crowd could potentially get on board with. Zoe, did anyone else have additional queries? Yeah, great questions.

First, I want to mention that Lisa Norris just wanted to reach out and say that the Duets were the first to plant Chardonnay in South Africa. And their first cuttings came from Burgundy. And obviously those cuttings are not used now, but it is obviously, obviously like relevant information. So, Lisa, I love you. Thank you for joining us. Lisa represents, it should be said, the importer. Broadbent selections that brings in this wine and the Pinotage we're going to be tasting shortly. Lisa is one of my favorite women in the world. She is fierce and just like hugely knowledgeable. And it should be noted that it was hard to bring in, it was hard to bring in a lot of things in the apartheid system because the union of grape growers, the cooperative that managed the wine industry under apartheid was very restrictive about what they allowed in, in terms of plant material.

So, it was a lot harder to bring in grapes. So, you did have producers like Duvetsoft that went out of their way to, you know, bring in what stateside they would call soucés. So, you know, they're just bringing in like individual plantings, much like monks would travel with, you know, canes in the Middle Ages, you know, in the modern era. And passionate wine producers would do. And Duvetsoft, they're Burgundy hounds and they're Chardonnay celebrants. Three quarters of their plantings are Chardonnay. And I think it's awesome. I love it. You know, Chardonnay has become unfashionable. Chardonnay makes some of the most profoundly delicious wines in the world. And, you know, I love that they're leaning into it. And they're leaning into it in a corner of South Africa. That's notable for its limestone.

That's uniquely well suited to this particular varietal. And their wines are, you know, consistently scored well. You know, they're not, you know, in the natural wine camp, but, you know, they're about as non-interventionist as you want, could want, you know, for the sake of the way the wines come from the vineyards to the bottle. So, yeah, great point, Lisa. What else we got, Dawn? What type of oak do they usually use in South Africa? Do you think that most producers lean to a more American style or French? France is very much the paradigm. I don't know of any tradition of using American oak in South Africa. There's local acacia. So, Nitsiki actually has a bottling that's more of like a Bordeaux blend. So, our label is named after our grandmother.

Our grandmother had this nickname that is a name for this, like, umbrella-like acacia tree. So, they have acacia. And I would have imagined that historically they used it. But everybody's bringing French oak. French oak is the— French oak is the paradigm, the go-to. And there is a really strong connection in South Africa because it was a commonwealth country historically between, you know, the continent, between Europe and the local wine trade. So, it would be almost exclusively French oak. How would you say that the Chenin Blancs in South Africa compare to more of their French counterparts, Vouvray in particular? Yeah, great question. So, you're closer to the equator. You're going to see way more ripeness. Chenin, as it gets riper, ceases to be, like, recognizable as Chenin to me sometimes.

Zoe has blind-tasted me on South African Chenin, and I've embarrassed myself. What did I—what did I—what have I guessed on South African Chenin before, Zoe? I forget. I think you was—You definitely said it was—Oh, you said it was Sancerre. Oh, yeah. Savy B. So, I guess Savy B. So, that's very embarrassing for me as a wine professional. But at any rate, it gets very lush, very tropical. And in my defense, Sauvignon Blanc will take some of that on, too. But Sauvignon Blanc is in a very different way. But it's almost unrecognizable sometimes to the wines of the Loire Valley. And the Loire is much further north. The growing season is much further—is much more extended. The levels of ripeness historically are much lower.

And so, you know, the characteristics you get out of that grape tend to be very different. And, you know, they play a role. They play around with the fullness texturally on the wines for the sake of their Chenin. So, you know, this one spent some time on the skins, about five hours for a portion of the wine. And that gives it further fullness and texture. I think, you know, people think about white, you know, wines, white grapes on the skins. And, you know, everybody goes to, like, Nerd Alert orange wine. But it's an important technique even for, you know, wines that we would, you know, unabashedly consider white. You know, that, you know, leaving a wine on the skins imparts this wonderful texture, especially for, you know, wines in warmer environments.

And, you know, for the sake of the Rimhoek II, they're selectively picking the ripest clusters. You know, so they're choosing a style that is more opulent. You know, they're leaning into that. And, you know, there are, you know, responsible ways to do that and irresponsible ways to do that. And sometimes, you know, you fall flat on your face and you make, like, the Duncan Hines vanilla frosting of wines. You know, which, you know— Maybe in, like, a weak moment is good if you're in, like, a very emotional state. But, you know, normally is something you wouldn't want to eat. But, you know, I think for the sake of this wine, they pulled off well. And, you know, I could actually see this wine, you know, being fun for the sake of a pairing.

You know, maybe I don't want to drink a full bottle of it, you know, because it is, you know, pretty massive. But, you know, with the right dish, you know, I could see it, like, being, you know, utterly, like, transformative and super fun. Awesome. So, let's move on then to Pinotage. So, nerd alert, Pinotage. So, I don't know. Like, I don't know how much saturation Pinotage has internationally. I don't know if there's, you know— I think, you know, some people know of Pinotage and associate it with South Africa to the extent that they follow wine. I don't think anyone has, like, a—like, casual consumers have a favorable, you know, kind of idea. This is kind of a fun tasting to close things out because we've got Sanseau and Pinotage. So, Sanseau.

And it is pronounced Sanseau. If you're at home, this is a moment in trainings with servers where I make everyone repeat after me. It looks like it should be pronounced like kin-salt. It's like somersault or something. But it's preposterously French. And if you want to, you know, impress your nerdy-san friends, it is Sanseau. Sanseau. How refined! But Syrah (Sanseau) is a great native to the southern Rhône, the warmer parts of Mediterranean France. And it goes into a lot of rosés. Super floral. You know, your workaday, you know, Grenache rosé is predominantly Syrah. But typically, it doesn't go into red grapes—actually, red wines, rather. I love it as a red. It's like pretty and floral and takes on this, like, you know, what is that velvet kind of texture? That's awesome.

And fun for this exercise because Syrah is one of the parents of Pinotage. So, inasmuch as we had this weird alien-savvy bee as a parent of cap soup thing happening, here it's much more straightforward. Pinotage is the offspring of Sannève and Pinot Noir. The name itself is a portmanteau. Sannève in South Africa was called Hermitage, which is super weird because people call Syrah Hermitage historically. And Sannève is mostly from the southern Rhône, whereas Hermitage is in the northern Rhône. I don't know how they got that all confused. But at any rate, that's how Pinotage became Pinotage. Pinotage. Tell the story. So, Pinotage was developed in the 1920s. It wasn't commercially produced until the 1950s. And then a bunch of former rugby players in South Africa—a lot of winemakers play rugby or dreamed of playing rugby.

It's just a thing. And that's not only a South African thing. It happens a lot in France, too. Maybe something about, like, you know, running into each other and killing a few brain cells is consistent with people who want to make alcohol for a living. But neither here nor there. They loved about Pinotage that it had some of the qualities of Pinot in terms of an elegance, but it had some of the productivity of Sanseau. So, Sanseau is a grape that, if you leave it to its own devices, will make a shit ton of wine. And under the apartheid era, co-op system, that was a good thing. It was very much a quantity over quality paradigm. Nobody really gave a rat's ass about, you know, how their wine tasted.

They just wanted to make a lot of it and, you know, get paid to do it. And, you know, honestly, the grape growers, the farmers, the white Afrikaans farmers, you know, of that era were some of the greatest beneficiaries of the apartheid system. But, you know, Sanseau, if you leave it as bush vines, is capable of so much more. It is capable of these really gorgeous, elegant, summery wines that are just hugely floral and seductive and profound. And then Pinotage gets a bad rap. It has a few things working against it, which are really fascinating. And, you know, I did some digging here and I know more about Pinotage than I ever expected to for the sake of this lesson. But Pinotage is like a very nutrient-rich grape, which, you know, sounds like it would be a good thing.

You know, you want to feed the yeast during fermentation. Nutrients are good. You get a fast fermentation. But having a fermentation that's like way too fast and having over-acted, you know, yeast making alcohol in wine tends to be a bad thing. You extract a lot of flavors you wouldn't want to extract. And you get a wine that, in the words of, you know, some, you know, Oxford dons who were first tasting South African Pinotage in the 60s, was reminiscent for them of rusty nails and nail varnish. Or it has that acetone, you know, burnt rubber kind of taste. And it has that kind of quality to it. And not in a fun way. In like a, you know, why would anyone drink this willingly kind of way.

Pinotage also tends to have very high pH. So it's more basic as a wine. The lower the pH in a wine, the more inclined the wine is from various microbiological, you know, bad actors. So a lot of the things that people associate with shitty Pinotage in terms of like off flavors, you know, could also be the result of just bad winemaking. And a high pH wine that is not as well protected from, you know, all of these bacteria that, you know, tend to run amok in a product like this. Pinotage also needs, you know, love. You know, it has that, you know, kind of like needy, you know, teenager Pinot personality a little bit. Where, you know, you've got to love Pinotage to get the most out of it.

You know, it does well in oak, but you have to give it the right amount of oak. You know, you have to manage the fermentation and the extraction very carefully. So the winemakers have to be very careful about how they punch down the cap. So when you make a red wine, you leave the skins floating on the top of the wine. And that's where all the extraction of color and flavor and texture comes. But you have to be very careful about how you manage that in Pinotage relative to other wines. And so, you know, it requires this level of attention that, you know, is easy, you know, to forget. And, you know, it is much easier to make a bad Pinotage than it is to, you know, perhaps make, you know, insipid Sun Tzu.

But it's a really fun wine. And what I dig about it is that it has what, you know, in Italian parlance we call this agrodolce. So it gets this like sweet mid-palate thing where, you know, the fruit's not actually sweet, but there's this lovely ripeness to it. And then concurrently, there's this like, you know, kind of like slightly, you know, sour, tart, bitter dimension. Herbal, brambly, wild, savage thing happening on the back end. Syrah has that in spades. Blanc-Franquiche has that in spades. You know, a lot of Austrian reds and Weigels has that in spades. There's something, you know, Nebbiolo has that in places. You know, there's something unsafe about it. But, you know, it's a wild ride and capable of these kind of profound expressions if you, you know, try to make the most of it.

And you're not simple about it. But, you know, for my sake, I'm going to start with the Sanso. It's hugely pretty. You know, it's almost like a white wine drinker's red. There's a lot of old bush vines on Sanso. These are both grapes that do better as bush vines than they do trained. So it should be said that bush vines are vines that don't look like the neat rose that we saw earlier. They're individual goblets. And that, you know, training vines that way tends to limit the yields. And, you know, with overproductive grapes, limiting yields is the only way you're going to make something worth drinking. And, you know, working with these untrained, gnarly, and frankly beautiful vines. Bush vines are gorgeous. They look like old olive trees.

And, you know, an old bush vine vineyard is, you know, full of these individual personalities that, you know, winemakers get to know. You know, plant to plant in this, like, wonderfully kind of intimate way. And, you know, the best of the wines are trained that way and grown that way. And these come from different corners of South Africa. So just to go to the map again for those of you drinking at home. The Sanso is from the Stellenbosch, from the Simonsburg region, once more adjacent to Parle, which was the same corner of the country as the Honey Bunch we're drinking from. The Pinotage is from Oberburg, which is in the Bott River Valley adjacent to Eldon. And there's quite a bit of topography here. There's some vineyards at elevation, you know, more so even in Stellenbosch.

And the cooling influence of both the current sweeping north from Antarctica and also, you know, the winds sweeping north from the Seine. And, you know, that gives the, you know, wines like Pinotage there a fresh start. A freshness that they wouldn't have otherwise. But kind of fun to try these wines side by side. They definitely feel like they belong to the same family to me. But, you know, they're nonetheless different. And, you know, they're made differently as well. It should be said that the Sanso is all neutral oak and concrete egg. So, concrete egg alert for those of you playing along at home. I know you guys love a concrete egg. Seventy percent of this age in concrete. And again, you know, that has a way of softening the texture on the wine.

And, you know, I definitely think you get a sense of that on the palate with this one. And then the Pinotage sees 18 months in French oak, a quarter of which is new. And in the miracle of this wine, you know, people, oak has become hugely unfashionable, especially with nerdy natural wine types. But, you know, it's like any fragrance. It's like any outfit, you know. You know, a good drag queen can wear a gaudy outfit and make it work, girl. You know, but, you know, oak is the same way. You know, you can wear a lot of bombastic, you know, stuff and make it work. I can't make it work. You know, I'm not the Pinotage. Like, I need like a really well-tailored suit.

You know, I'm like, I would definitely be like a natural wine, like neutral oak kind of grape. But, you know, other people, you know, they could make, you know, more bombastic like new oak things work. And, you know, I think that's important to celebrate, you know, where it arises. Zoe, what do you got for me? I'm sorry. I'm just recovering from what you just said. Okay. Well, it's important to know your strengths. I think as a, in terms of personifying ourselves as wine, it's important to know, you know, where your strengths are. And my strengths, you know, as a wine and as a fashionista are not, you know, you know, branching out. You know, I wish I could dress like an NBA player, you know, like LeBron on the bench.

You know, he has like all the suits and all the colors and it's all, you know. Like, awesome. I can't do that. Like, I need to look like, you know, you know, like a well-tailored, like 60s, like, you know, actor. Like, that's my, that's my speed. You know, it's a little more boring, but like, you know, know your strengths. I have some specific questions about Pinotage, that really bad taboo reputation that it has. It's like port rubber or like paint thinner, I've heard, and tar. Is there something that is particular about the primary fruit or about the soil? Where does that come from? Yeah, again, I think, you know, and again, in like, like visiting Pinotage as a specific entity, I think a lot of it has to do with these like unique characteristics of the grape.

So, you know, in a lot of ways, it has, you know, kind of like, that's like any kid, you know, you get the best and the worst of both your parents. So, you know, Pinotage, like in terms of the worst from both his parents and Cinsault and Pinot Noir, from Cinsault, it gets its tendency to overproduce. And from Pinot, it gets its kind of like temperamental streak. You know, so when you combine those, you need a grape that's volatile and hard to work with. So, and I don't think people fully understand sometimes too, like how much, you know, the process of fermentation changes the flavor of a wine. So, for the sake of Pinotage, you have these ferments that are happening really fast because the grape is rich in all these nutrients and, you know, the yeast just like bugs out and they convert sugar to alcohol really fast.

And, you know, that tends to extract a lot of flavors at the end of the fermentation process that you might not want in a wine conventionally. So, you have to work really hard to manage that process to kind of, you know, steer clear of those, you know, rusty nail varnish, you know, kind of flavors. And then I just think there's a cynicism that came with the way these wines were made. And I think it is a little bit with Pinotage sometimes, like the baby being thrown out with bathwater, where, you know, Pinotage, you know, happened to be a grape that, you know, under the, you know, apartheid era co-op system, a lot of producers were, you know, working with and overproducing and making really bad examples of.

And, you know, so people came to think of these bad examples of Pinotage as synonymous with Pinotage. And, you know, you know, they're not one in the same. Any more than, you know, Australian Chardonnay is limited to Yellowtail. You know, they're good Aussie chards. It just so happens that, you know, Yellowtail is the only one that people know. Can we talk about the 2018 water crisis and how that affected winemakers in particular? You know, the drought has been a huge issue in South Africa. Typically they get enough winter rain to mitigate that. And typically the soils are healthy enough or water retentive enough that, you know, in a lot of places they don't have to irrigate. But it depends on where you are. I'm going to pull up the map again.

You know, so closer to the Cape, they tend to get, you know, more rain. But, you know, further inland, certainly in Parle and Wellington, and, you know, in Spartland where Audie Badenhorst is, and we saw Audie's Vermouth. And Audie may or may not be in the audience here. Audie is a madman. And we love Audie. But, you know, in these, you know, more kind of, you know, like remote enclaves, you know, where you're further from the sea, there isn't, you know, the same maritime influence. And so, yeah, there's less access to water. And, you know, you do have to irrigate to make wine. And a lot of producers are worried that, you know, that is a sign of the times. And that, you know, again, you know, people talk about global warming.

But we're really dealing with climate change, you know. And, you know, the kind of more overarching way that these global weather patterns alter and, you know, extreme drought, particularly, you know, in the African continent is a huge issue. And, you know, the regions of South Africa that are closer to the Kalahari, for example, you know, have been disproportionately affected by that. And, you know, access to water is a human rights issue there as well, you know, in, you know, a way that, you know, needs to be addressed. You know, obviously, you know, before any grapes are getting fed and, you know, clean water remains an issue in a lot of the more impoverished corners of the country, you know, sadly, through to the modern era.

So I think, you know, sadly, I fear and I think a lot of winemakers fear that, you know, the issues with drought will, you know, continue to be pervasive. And South Africa as a whole, you know, will continue to need to, you know, find ways out of it. And, you know, part of that means, you know, conserving more effectively in places like Cape Town where you had, you know, shortages of clean water, you know, at the height of that water crisis and, you know, developing infrastructure and reserves that doesn't happen again. But, you know, wine is at least the worries in times like that. Could you talk a little bit about the tradition of a wax top? And then from a professional point of view, can you help us all out on how to, you know, open bottles with wax tops?

What are we supposed to do with our chlorovines? I would love to. Yeah, yeah. So, okay. So we have two wax tops here. And it should be noted that oil, oil is actually kind of a newer thing. It should be noted more overarchingly that bottles are a newer thing. So much of the way we enjoy wine, you know, in as much as, you know, we take a very narrow view of history that's very Eurocentric, or I do, I know, especially if you see wine. You know, we take a very narrow view in terms of how we enjoy wine. So wine in a bottle didn't exist on an overarching level until the 19th century. Wine with a foil didn't exist, you know, overarchingly until maybe, you know, late 19th, early 20th.

Wax was a very convenient enclosure before that time. Do not be intimidated by the wax. And all wax is not created equal. The best way to deal with the wax is to go straight through the wax. Own the wax. Don't, you know, try to chip away at the wax. Just literally, you know, take your scorcher, go straight through the wax and straight out. You know, that is the best way to address the wax. And that's what I did with both these bottles. And it works splendidly. Occasionally, with like old bottles of Lopez de Heredia or like other, like wonderfully old bottles, you'll get this special breed of noxious wax that is very brittle and chippy. And you can do that on those bottles.

And then, you know, you have to be very careful about how you remove the cork. And in traditional Sommelier service, you would have like a pre-moistened serviette to deal with that very elegantly, tableside. Needless to say, you know, I don't abide by always those conventions of service. But at any rate, you know, I think the best way through is always straight through the wax. For the sake of those of you who are Coravanning at home, I would just slice off that top layer. The needles are a little fragile sometimes for the wax, I find. And so, you know, I would just kind of like chip away at that top layer and make a, you know, a bench for yourself and then go straight in the cork.

But if you're drinking a whole bottle, just go right in and right out and the cork will take that wax with it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Could you talk a little bit about the co-op, the KWB, the quota system and all of that nonsense? Yeah. So they essentially disincentivized good wine making, you know, so they, you know, were established, you know, that system. And again, you know, you're dealing with the Afrikaans language. So KWB stands in English for Cooperative Wine Growers Association. And they essentially manage everything about the system and, and really on like an aggressive state control kind of level, control the, you know, amount of wine that was purchased, the price of the wine, et cetera, which is, you know, very hugely beneficial to growers, but created no economic incentive to make wine that was good.

So, you know, they were disincentivizing, you know, quality wine. And then to add to that, as the rest of the world woke up to the horrors of the apartheid system, you know, there were sanctions enacted by, you know, the European Union by the United States and nobody was buying their wine. So they largely produced for the domestic market. And, you know, it's a fascinating paradigm to this day. You know, you know, some of the wines made, you know, by local wineries and by the co-ops, which, you know, continue to exist into the modern era, you know, do better locally than they do internationally. And a lot of the, you know, native, like, you know, black wine makers, especially the ones, you know, like Nikitsi that have kind of leaned into, you know, that heritage, you know, they talk about locally, sometimes their wines being viewed as too ethnic, you know, and the local market, you know, being, you know, just kind of, you know, you know, sensitive.

To that and not, you know, not wanting to, you know, celebrate that. And, you know, so, you know, they do better with, you know, this branding, you know, in the European Union, in the United States, in Japan and places like that, you know, but the cool thing about that is Nikitsi gets to visit all those places and, you know, from, you know, this small township and, you know, Zululand, you know, she has this, you know, life that, you know, is global in a way that I don't think she ever, ever imagined. And that's, that's pretty, that's pretty fucking cool. I do want to say, I don't know if maybe Lisa can chime in on the chat.

I don't know if we have Adi with us, but we did include a vermouth in the mix and I'm going to toast everybody before we get to the final set of questions, because Adi Vattenhorst comes from Swartland. Adi is good people. Adi is a former, former rugby player. It should be noted that in my, the midst of my abortive college educational career, after I, you know, could no longer play soccer at a high level, I played rugby at a mediocre level, and chipped teeth and dislocated shoulders. But Adi is in a Swartland in this very rural part of South Africa that through the work of people like him, through the work of people like Evan Sadie has become this like really amazing emerging region there.

And he makes this awesome vermouth, which hearkens back to this product that existed in the early 20th century and is made with all these native South African botanicals, combush and naranjies, which is local citrus. Coinbush are these like scrubland plants that are unique to South Africa, which has this amazing biodiversity of flora. That is what we're celebrating. And we didn't touch on this at all, but South African wineries have been really forward thinking in terms of their commitment to sustainability across the board. And I think, you know, that is something that they want to talk about and trumpet more than the legacy of apartheid for better or worse. But, you know, they are really celebrating the biodiversity of their land. And this is kind of like the biodiversity of South Africa infused in a bottle.

And everyone should be drinking more vermouth. We're going to be selling more ourselves in the name of shameless self-promotion for the sake of Revelers Hour wine store. But, you know, vermouth is one of like great joys. Don't throw it in a cocktail, you know, just drink it. You know, it's so good in and of itself. Adi's Capra tea is too delicious on its own, not to fully appreciated on its own. So Lisa, William Holby, Adi, if you're out there, I love you guys. And thank you to all of you for joining us today. Again, apologies for the 15 minutes worth of radio silence. For those of you patiently waiting in the waiting room, you know, honored to have you all joining us. Make sure we get the recording.

For the sake of that 15-minute distillation of thousands of years worth of South African history from an unexpert perspective. But, you know, wherever you are enjoying this, we're thrilled to be with you alone and together. Cheers. So what do you have for us for the sake of unaddressed questions? Can we talk a little bit about Constantia? Is it a grape? Is it a region? Is it a wine? Why is it all sweet? Yeah. So it's like a region. So it's a small corner of South Africa, just south of Cape Town. The grapes, historically, the most important grape was Mascot. There were others in the mix. And sometimes it was white. Sometimes it's red. They don't totally, they haven't like fully unwrapped how it was made.

Because, you know, it wasn't made in the same style consistently through to the modern era. It's thought that the wine was made from grapes that were not made from grapes that were left to dry on the vines. They were not affected by botrytis or noble rot. It was more of like a dried grape wine. They found some evidence of bottles that were fortified for shipping and evidence of bottles that were unfortified. And there's still bottles that exist from the 19th century, if you're lucky enough to come by them. But it was hugely celebrated throughout the world. And, you know, I don't think that people realize the extent to which the wines that people celebrated prior to the modern era. And I think of the modern era vis-à-vis wine as encapsulating basically the 19th century and the 20th.

You know, most of the wines that people were lauding were sweet wines. Sweet wines were the most celebrated wines. They're the wines that could age the best and withstand these long journeys. So whether it was, you know, Madeira or Constantia or Tokay, you know, the most, you know, widely celebrated wines tend to be sweet and Constantia was one among them. But Constantia is essentially an early modern brand. It was a wine estate established by a South African governor and perfected by a later Dutch merchant at the tail end of the 18th century that became this like hugely successful early brand. And it has survived into the modern era, and they're kind of like, you know, trying to reproduce, like reproduce the older wines. But, you know, I would say like, you know, that progression wasn't continuous.

So there's a lot of debate about what exactly the wine tasted like at its height. Some questions about sparkling wine, that method, Cap Clastique. Yeah, yeah. So that is, you know, there's a lot of really lovely sparkling wine that comes out of South Africa. Cap Clastique, hopefully it didn't, 86 is my map, but I can pull it up again. But Chardonnay is one of the major ingredients in Cap Clastique. And, you know, it is a wine that comes, you know, kind of largely from, you know, the kind of eastern corner of the Cape region. And, you know, is, you know, every bit the, you know, can be every bit the equal of Champagne. So, you know, just to zoom in, you know, these regions, you know, just kind of like south of Stellenbosch, adjacent to Elgin and Overberg, you know, that have more of that maritime influence, tend to produce higher acid, you know, wines, you know, that, you know, are the kinds of, you know, source material you want for sparkling wine.

So with sparkling wine, typically, you know, you want grapes that are higher in acid, you know, because that is the ballast that makes sparkling wine drinkable and enjoyable, is that acid streak. And in the vineyard, producers tend to harvest grapes for sparkling wine much earlier than they would for a still wine. And, you know, that's certainly the case for Cap Classique as well. And, you know, that cooling influence of that Antarctic current, of those, what's called the keep normal winds, you know, make for an ideal environment for, you know, those sparkling wines, much like, you know, in Canaros, in Sonoma. You do that, you know, kind of like cooling influence of the Pacific. And that tends to be a really great region for sparkling wine as well.

Some questions just about Pinotage in particular, because South Africa has so many different microclimates. Is Pinotage mostly found in like cooler climates, warmer climates? Yes, yes. That's a really fascinating question. So you get different styles of Pinotage. I think, like the one, like in terms of from what I've read and, you know, winemakers I've listened to, the podcast, the one thing that Pinotage does not do well is more productive soils. So soils that are heavier and more fertile do not work well with Pinotage because it's a very productive grape already, because it's very nutrient rich already. If you're adding more nutrients to that, you get to this critical nutrient mass where, you know, things just go awry and, you know, they just kind of like collapse under their own weight.

So like soil type I think is more important to Pinotage than climate in some ways, because you can get, you know, cooler climate Pinotages, which is definitely the case for the Beaumont. You know, this is at 14% alcohol, but it's a high acid wine. It doesn't taste like that. It wears it well, you know, but I think, you know, that soil type, you know, being less fertile soils, which train vines, you know, you know, soils that are more granitic or sandy or whatever, I think that's, you know, more hugely important for the sake of Pinotage, you know, perhaps than, you know, climate. Although being a Pinot Noir derivative, you're definitely going to get a point, to a point with this grape where, you know, it will get too hot.

You know, it's not going to be as dry. It's not going to be as drought and heat resistant as Sansa. What else you guys have? I think that's about it. You've touched on everything on my list so far. Mazel tov. So, you know, lastly, for all of you that are still in the mix, I just want to thank you again for joining us. And I'm sorry that we didn't get to Audie. If you are in the mix somewhere, I have no doubt that you have a drink in hand. It is six hours ahead in South Africa. And I realize that it was only a mere six hours, albeit, you know, seemingly half a world away. But we chose to all the South Africans who, you know, are muddying through as we all are and, you know, dealing with the historical hand that we have been dealt in trying to make a better world forward, you know, not only, you know, nationally, but, you know, for the sake of our, our wines and, you know, hopefully for the sake of baking, facing these hard truths together and, you know, kind of universally taking joy in the simple tables that the pleasure, the simple kind of pleasures of the table that, you know, food and drink have to offer us in the midst of it all. So cheers, Zoe. Thank you so much. And thank you to everyone out there. Have a lovely Sunday evening.