South African Wine Producers

Wine has been made in South Africa since at least the 17th century, and some of the country’s most venerable estates can trace their history back this far. Klein Constantia, for instance, was originally part of the vast Constantia property established by Simon van der Stel, the first governor of the Cape, in 1685. Meerlust and Boekenhooutskloof have similarly impressive heritage, but it has only really been in the last 40 years that such estates have been bottling wine commercially. Around the same time, a host of modern producers began springing up, many carrying the names of the families behind them, from Hamilton Russell to Newton Johnson. These have been joined even more recently – since the turn of the century – by a host of dynamic individuals whose enterprising approach has taken the country’s wines to new heights via the likes of AA Badenhorst and Richard Kershaw, Mullineux Family Wines and Sadie Family Wines.