Port in South Africa, well, Cape Vintage if we are being correct, wasn’t something planned by some pioneering winemaker in a far corner of the Klein Karoo.
The story of Portuguese wine varieties like Tinta Barroca was purely stumbled upon, rather than intentionally planted. Today, Calitzdorp in the Klein Karoo is known as the Port Capital of South Africa, and this is where it all started.
The first Portuguese grapes planted in South Africa were intended to be Shiraz.
The story goes that Danie Nel (who’d go on to become the owner of Boplaas after an amicable split from De Krans in 1980) returned from a visit to the Swartland in the 1970s.
He had loaded his Chevy El Camino with Pinotage and Shiraz, The Shiraz was a big favourite when it was bottled.
But Danie’s son, Carel, noticed something after studying oenology in Stellenbosch – that the Shiraz he learnt about differed from what they had on the farm.
Further investigation revealed that this was indeed Tinta Barocca, a grape from the Doura Valley.
De Krans made the first their first “Port” in 1977 and it was an immediate success at the Young South African Wine Show.
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