MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Chardonnay — summer favourite with an illicit past
More ambitious producers were forced to smuggle in Burgundy white variety
Chardonnay has had a bit of a chequered history in SA. Up to the end of the 1970s there were no vineyards to speak of. This was partly because there had been little interest in what was considered an obscure French cultivar, but also because the planting material was so compromised that it was impossible to make fine wine from it.
It was at this time that the Cape’s producers began to discover the palette of international varieties missing from our vineyards. Between the early 1970s and 1980 many of the varieties we now take for granted — cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc and merlot, for example — were first made available by the plant quarantine authorities to the country’s growers. For some reason chardonnay was not included, leaving the more ambitious producers with little alternative but to smuggle in their requirements...
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