Brandy-making in South Africa goes back three hundred years, but its story certainly isn’t stuck in the history books. A good and enjoyable way to learn about this cultural icon, and discover why it consistently wins global competitions, is available at several, top-class brandy experiences.

While a simple wine tasting will give you a snapshot of a vintage, blending and vertical tastings are two ways that provide insight into the nitty gritty of grape farming and wine-making.

The journey from vine to glass is a matter of science and circumstance. There are a wide number of species of vines which bears a variety of grapes, known as varietals. For instance, the Chardonnay grape is green and produces white or ‘blanc’, Chardonnay wine. Each varietal, affected by soil type, climate, wind, farming practices and other factors, produces various characteristics. In South Africa, it is not legal to add flavourants. As such, when Chardonnay is said to exhibit vanilla, for instance, certain winemaking processes might exhibit that character. For example, aging, or maturing wine in wood can produce certain tastes and smells.

New research suggests that language influences how we perceive the world. So in order to better understand us and our sometimes strange ways, here are some uniquely South African words to help you navigate our winelands and our wine culture.

The hamlet of Tesselaarsdal is in the Overberg, about midway between Caledon and Stanford. It’s 135km from Cape Town and after tracking the N2, can be reached via a network of country roads through sprawling farmlands. The wine company named after the settlement is owned by Berene Sauls who was raised there, and its wines are made in the Hemel en Aarde Valley winery of Hamilton Russell. The grapes are from Hemel en Aarde too.

South African wines are lauded globally for their outstanding quality and distinctive character. Remarkably, they not only taste good, but make a significant contribution to the economy and provide thousands of jobs.

Do you want to learn a bit more about wine this year to talk the talk in the tasting room?

Here are 20 facts every lover of South African wine should know. Armed with this checklist you’ll bluff anyone into believing you are an authority.

South Africa’s winelands have always professed to welcome all. An initiative focused on language rather than tourism or wine, however, promises to take this hospitality and the wine industry in general to new heights.

A series of workshops with mother-tongue speakers of Shona, Zulu and Xhosa that lay the groundwork to make wine appreciation more widely accessible, has just been concluded. Led by the South African Chenin Blanc Association, a sector interest group, and several industry stakeholders, the project involves a re-interpretation of traditional wine descriptions.

The Black Cellar Club (BLACC) is a young organisation with a mission to share the story of South African wine.

The Cape’s wine farms are best known for being the intersect of tourism and the business of wine. They also are essential for education and training, as the Black Cellar Club (BLACC) has shown since its establishment in 2016.

Several WWF Conservation Champions farms promote and support the conservation of the threatened Cape mountain leopard, setting an example of environmental protection in the wine industry.

In the Middle Ages wax seals were used to authenticate documents. South Africa’s own sustainability wine seal does a similar job. The seal guarantees that the information on the bottle label about the variety, vintage and origin of the wine is accurate and that the wine has been grown and made in an environmentally friendly way. To date, South Africa is the only country in the world with such an all-encompassing guarantee.