Of all non European wine-producing countries, South Africa has most energetically hung its hat on the concept of terroir. Not that it actually uses such an emotionally charged French word in its generic promotional pitch, of course. Instead its slogan is ‘Variety is in our Nature’. The spiel about South Africa’s biodiversity is even to be found at www.varietyisinournature.com replete with detail on the uniqueness of the Cape’s many different wine regions. Even the geographical designation system is not called something linguistically straightforward such as ‘appellation’ or ‘denominaton’ but ‘Origin’.
All exported South African wines have to have a...