Tag Archives: variety

So you know what the most-planted wine varieties are, right?

MANY WINE lovers would be amazed on being told that neither Chardonnay nor Cabernet rank among the Top 3 most widely planted grape vines in France. And outside Spain and Portugal, who would have thought that Tempranillo is as big as it is in the total scheme of things. In the Cape winelands, the most-planted variety of grape vine is

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Some wine grape varieties do better in some places than in others. Duh!

MANY ARE UNAWARE or forget that in parts of the world the cultivation of wine grape varieties is stictly controlled. As some well know, this was once the case in South Africa, whereas now you can plant anything anywhere, so to speak. Naturally, there are some areas that are better suited to wine farming than others, and certain grape varieties

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Cinsaut or Cinsault, Grenache Blanc or Noir… Talk about liquid assets!

UNUSUAL cultivars, niche varieties, alternative grapes, call them what you may… Certain leading South African cellarmasters are making some lovely wines that orginate in vineyards somewhat different from what most people with a taste for good living know all too well. Some are difficult to pronounce, let alone find on the average winelist or bottle store shelf, however the specialist

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Winemag finds four ‘outstanding’ unusuals in ‘alternative’ report

FOCUSING on single-variety wines of South Africa that fall outside the mainstream, Winemag.co.za’s 2018 Alternative Varieties Report includes 26 wines reviewed as excellent (90 to 92/100) and four as outstanding (93 to 95/100) – this from a line-up of 97 wines. The judges, – editor and panel chair Christian Eedes with online retailer Wine Cellar’s Roland Peens and James Pietersen – found

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South Africa seventh-biggest wine producer in the world – 2017 stats

ACCORDING to statistics provided by the Paris-based International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) in June 2017, the area under vine throughout the world was estimated at 7.5 million hectares in 2016, with total wine production estimated at 267 million hectolitres (9% less than in 2015). South Africa now ranks seventh among the biggest wine-producing countries in the world: 1 Italy (50.9

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