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A Technical Guide for Wine Producers
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF VINEYARD
ZONATION AND DEMARCATION
IN SOUTH AFRICA
In 1685, Simon Van der Stel, the Governor of the Cape Colony, probably made
the first terrain selection, selecting from available land the cool and wind
sheltered Constantia area in the Cape Peninsula for his vineyards. Here he
made red wines of outstanding quality and planted imported German cultivars
in 1705 (Archer & Saayman, 1996). During the period 1780-1890, Constantia
gained international status with the demand for its natural sweet wines,
inter alia by King Louis Phillipe and Napoleon Bonaparte of France and
Bismarck of Germany. However, the fame of Constantia, and other reputable
wines, were progressively undermined by inferior quality wines being offered
under their names on the export market. Today Constantia and its
environments is a demarcated ward and its wines are again highly esteemed by
wine connoisseurs.
The Dutch settlers, turned farmers, were at first unenthusiastic about
viticulture, but the advent of the French Huguenots in 1688 markedly
stimulated the young wine industry (Perold, 1936), especially around
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl (Fig. 1). Willem Adriaan van der Stel,
succeeding his farther as Governor, was a great believer in the wine
industry and developed Vergelegen, near the present day Somerset West, where
he planted 100 000 to 250 000 vines (Perold, 1936). Realising the quality of
the grapes grown in the Cape, the Governor-General, Baron von Imhoff, in
1743 recommended that viticulturists be obtained from the Rhine and France
to instruct the settlers in wine- making. The 1793 statistics of Commissary
De Mist showed the Cape to have 0.86 million vines and Stellenbosch (at that
time including Caledon, Paarl, Malmesbury, Piketberg, Tulbagh, Ceres and
Worcester districts, Fig. 1) 0.91 million vines, reflecting the zonation and
size of wine growing regions for the whole colony at that time (Perold,
1936).
Von Imhoff also recommended the importation of French and European
grape-vine varieties. This was only fully realised when Perold imported
about 100 of the best grape varieties of Europe and Algeria on behalf of the
Government (Perold, 1936). The British occupied the Cape in 1806 and from
1811, when Great Britain could not obtain European wine, officially
encouraged viticulture at the Cape and introduced preference tariffs in
1813, causing a dramatic stimulation in the wine industry (Burger, 1977). In
1880, the first investigation into the presence of the feared phylloxera was
done. At that time there were over 120 million vines in the Western
Province, comprising
44 000 to 45 000 acres (Perold, 1936), viz. approximately 18 000 ha.
Phylloxera broke out in 1886, but no time was lost in importing American
vine material from France. This enabled the Cape grape producers to overcome
the crisis.
Presently South African viticulture comprises more than 103 000 ha (308.8
million vines), of which about 91% are planted to wine grapes, producing
more than 1 000 million liters of wine (Archer & Saayman, 1996). The
traditional viticultural regions, that include the Western Cape Coastal
Region (inter alia Constantia, Durbanville, Darling, Stellenbosch, Somerset
West, Paarl, Wellington and Tulbagh), and parts of the Swartland (inter alia
Darling, Malmesbury, Porterville and Piketberg, have a frost free
Mediterranean climate (Fig. 1), with about 30% of the annual precipitation
during the growing period, mainly in spring and autumn. Because of the
generally highly weathered, acid soils with a low organic material content
and low cation exchange capacity, often gale force winds and limited water
reserves, moderate vigour and moderate production levels are experienced.
Because of this and a relative cool climate, the emphasis in these areas is
on quality wine production.
In inland areas, separated from the coastal zone by mountain ranges and
characterised by high aridity indexes, viticulture mainly developed along
river valleys like the Breede, Hex (almost exclusively table grapes),
Olifants and Orange Rivers, where water for irrigation was available
(Saayman, 1988). The latter region has a summer rainfall and specialises in
early maturing table and raisin grapes, although bulk wines are also
produced.
Gradually merchants and producers started to specify cultivar and vintage on
labels of better quality wines, but without any control over the indicated
claims. Most farmers delivered their grapes at co-operatives, but a number
still made wines on their farms and started marketing it as estate wines,
again with no control over the specifications. However, the latter producers
soon realised that no control could jeopardise their capital investment and
requested the Minister of Agriculture to protect and control the marketing
of estate wines. The need for demarcating areas for the production of wines
of origin was supported by the Nietvoorbij Wine Research Institute and the
KWV (Kok, 1976).
Wine legislation in South Africa covers a wide field, i.e. plant mate-
rial certification; health and technical control on wine; production and
price regulation; wine export; import and distribution control; customs and
excise and wine of origin control (Kok, 1994). Only the development and
structure of wine of origin will be dealt with in this presentation.
Successful production and marketing of wine in the modern world is only
possible if it is rigorously controlled. For this, legislation and
inspection services are needed. In South Africa, being a relatively young
wine producing country, legislation was regularly amended and since becoming
a member of the OIV in 1961, decisions taken by this organisation had a
strong influence on South African legislation (Kok, 1994).
In 1969 estate wine producers requested the Minister of Agriculture to
protect the marketing of their wines and in 1970 he appointed two
Commissions of Inquiry to investigate the feasibility of demarcating areas
of production and the marketing of estate wines (Kok, 1976). As a result, a
Wine of Origin Control system was in place in 1973, with the Act on Liquor
Products (Act no. 60 of 1989) stipulating that any indication of origin,
cultivar or vintage is prohibited unless the area, district or ward is
demarcated and the wines have been produced in terms of the control system
(Kok, 1994).
The wine of origin concept received further support and acceptance because
of research results during the seventies. In field trails the marked effect
of soil on wine character could be demonstrated (Saayman, 1977). This work
also showed that wine character is not necessarily determined by an
intrinsic soil property, but that it is largely influenced by the climate of
the specific season. Therefore, the soil effect may vary from year to year.
Presently the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Nietvoorbij Centre for
Vine and Wine is still actively engaged in research aimed at quantifying
soil (W J Conradie, 1998 - paper to be presented at the Territory & Wine
Symposium, Siena, Italy) and climatic factors that have prominent effects on wine character.
The demarcation process started in 1972 (Kok, 1976). Demarcation is not
forced on producers but only investigated on application of interested
producers or groups, and implemented if found viable. In a young wine
country like South Africa, where tradition is not well developed and
sufficient experimental information is lacking, it is only natural and logic
that much emphasis is placed on soil and climatic aspects (Saayman, 1976).
The basic principle is, therefore, to demarcate areas according to natural
features, principally landscape and soil patterns, macro climate and
ecological features. This allows producers in a demarcated area to develop
their vitiviniculture within this demarcated area, and consequently the area
to distinguish itself as unique in terms of wine style or character, rather
than having to prove this before demarcation.
Four categories of demarcated areas were and still is basically used, viz.
regions, districts, wards and estates. The present situation concerning
already demarcated units, is shown in Table 1. Four regions, eleven
districts and 42 wards, as well as 92 estates (data not shown) are already
demarcated. With the present revival of the wine industry because of
improved export opportunities, a substantial increase in demand for
demarcation can be expected.
Although divisional districts (administrative boundaries) were used to
demarcate the larger, more encompassing regions, their boundaries still
conformed to a high degree to macro geographical features like mountain
ranges and rivers and they represent broad climatic regions. For the second
category, the smaller districts, the boundaries of divisional districts were
again mostly used, but in such a way as to represent more defined macro
climatic regions, sometimes necessitating the grouping of more than one
district, or only parts of districts.
The third category consists of still smaller units called wards, and can be
considered the most refined. For ward demarcation the following factors are
considered:
The demarcation of wards is essentially based on land types. The land type
concept is unique to South Africa and was proposed by Macvicar et al.
(1974). The land type survey of South Africa culminated into a series of
Memoirs on the Agricultural Natural Resources of South Africa and
accompanying 1:250 000 land type maps. A land type is defined as a class of
land over which the macro climate, the terrain form and the soil pattern
each displays a marked degree of uniformity. This uniformity is such that
there would be little advantage in defining more uniform landscapes. One
land type differs from another in terms of one or more of macro climate,
terrain form or soil pattern (Macvicar et al., 1974). Using the method of
Kruger (1973), 1:50 000 topo-cadastral maps and field surveys were used to
map areas of uniform terrain on a
1:250 000 scale, called terrain morphological types. In its turn, terrain
types consist of terrain morphological units, which can be crest, scarp,
middleslope, footslope and bottomland
TABLE 1: Production areas demarcated according to the Wine of Origin Scheme (Anon, 1996)*. * Western Cape is an umbrella geographical unit which encompass all regions, districts and wards, except Andalusia, Douglas, Benede-Oranje and Jakobsdal-OVS, which are situated in the Northern Cape and the Orange Free State Provinces.
 (Fig. 2). Soils of each terrain morphological unit were investigated using the method compiled by Verster (1973), resulting in 1:250 000 maps of pedosystems (soils with similar distribution over a terrain morphological type, i.e. a markedly uniform terrain soil pattern and geology). Macro climate was mapped according to the method proposed by Macvicar (1973), principally using existing meteorological data, terrain form, soil pattern and vegetation as indicators of climatic changes.
SUMMARY The 340 year old history of viticulture in South Africa started with the first planting of vines by the Commander of the first Dutch settlers at the Cape. Further expansion was encouraged by succeeding Governors and also stimulated by the arrival of the French Huguenots in 1688. Constantia wines became internationally famous and thus were the first "wines of origin" from South Africa. After the British occupation of the Cape in 1806, viticulture was further stimulated due to the inaccessibility of Europe and its wines to Britain at that stage. Vineyards were mainly established in the south-western coastal zone around the Cape and in adjacent inland synclinal river valleys were irrigation water was available. These areas, characterised by a Mediterranean climate, are still the main wine producing regions today. Towards 1850, wine exports reached an all time low because of the deterioration in wine quality, mainly as a result of the absence of control over origin and quality. This problem was realised by the industry and resulted in a Wine of Origin Control system since 1973. Demarcation of existing vineyards was, and still is, done by technical experts, using four categories, viz. (1) Regions, based on broad geographical features and administrative boundaries; (2) Districts, based on geographical and macro climatic features; (3) Wards, essentially based on uniform soil, climatic and ecological patterns; and (4) Estates, based on the concept of singular ownership of vineyards and wine being produced on the estate. To demarcate wards, land type maps are used. Land types are a concept unique to South Africa and is defined as a class of land over which the macro climate, the terrain form and soil pattern each displays a marked uniformity. Land types differ from each other in terms of macro climate, terrain form or soil pattern, or combinations of these natural factors. Lacking sufficient tradition, experience and experimental information, compared to the old world wine countries, the philosophy behind demarcation in South Africa is to identify natural terrain units, using available technical information, and then allowing such units to develop and demonstrate particular wine styles and character, rather than demanding proof of uniqueness before demarcation is done.
REFERENCES ANON, 1996. Documentation, The Secretary, Wine of Origin Scheme, PO Box 2176, Dennesig, RSA.
ANON, 1997. The Liquor Products Act. The SA Licensee's Guardian. pp.140-144. BURGER, J. D., 1977. A review of the South African vitiviniculture and present research in this respect with special reference to the quality of the vintage. International symposium on the quality of the vintage, 14-21 February, 1977, Cape Town, South Africa. KOK, C., 1976. The wine of origin concept in South Africa. Unpublished document. Nietvoorbij Research Institute for Vine and Wine, Stellenbosch, RSA. KOK, C., 1994. La legislation du vin en Afrique du Sud. 2nd International Symposium on Wine and Vine Law, 27-29 April, Wine University, Suze-la-Rousse, France. KRUGER, G. P., 1973. Konsepte, tegnieke en prosedures vir die globale hulpbronopnameprogram (terrein). Soil and Irrig. Inst. Report No. 154/73/784. Dept. Agric. Tech. Services. Pretoria. MACVICAR, C. N., 1973. Konsepte, tegnieke en prosedures vir die globale hulpbronopnameprogram (klimaat). Soil and Irrig. Inst. Report No. 154/73/784. Dept. Agric. Tech. Services. Pretoria. MACVICAR, C. N., SCOTNEY, D. M. SKINNER, T. E. NIEHAUS, H. S. & LOUBSER, J. H., 1974. A classification of land (climate, terrain form, soil) primarily for rainfed agriculture. S. Afr. J. Agric. Extension, 3(3): 1-4. PEROLD, A. I., 1936. Historical Notes on the Cape Wine Industry. In: The Wine Book of South Africa. The Western Province of the Cape, and its Wine Industry. Wine and Spirit Publishers, Stellenbosch, South Africa. SAAYMAN, D., 1976. ÒWines of originÓ concept and how it is implemented with regard to soil and climate. Sixth meeting of the SARCCUS Standing Committee for Soil Science, Stellenbosch, 13-15 January, 1976. SAAYMAN, D., 1977. The effect of soil and climate on wine quality. International symposium on the quality of the vintage, 14-21 February, 1977, Cape Town, South Africa. SAAYMAN, D. 1988. The role of environment and cultural aspects in the production of table, raisin and wine grapes in South Africa. I & II. Dec. Fruit Grow., 38(2): 60-65; 38(3): 90-97 VERSTER, E., 1973. Konsepte, tegnieke en prosedures vir die globale hulpbronopnameprogram (grond). Soil and Irrig. Inst. Report No. 154/73/784. Dept. Agric. Tech. Services. Pretoria. (Paper delivered at the International Symposium on Territory and Wine, Siena, Italy, 19-24 May 1998). Fig. 2: Traditional wine region centres and climatic regions of the Western Cape Province. |
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