Do a little research, however, and it appears Cab’s standing in the industry is relatively tenuous. Prior to the Wine of Origin legislation of 1973, controls over varietal naming were loose meaning that Cab was often blended with a melange of other grapes even though it was presented to the market as Cab and Cab alone.
Wine of Origin had the effect of focusing attention in South Africa on the potential of the individual property or “estates” (as opposed to multi-regional, branded wine which had dominated until then) and with this, the workhorse variety that was Cinsaut was downplayed in favour of more premium varieties like Cab. However, it would be wrong to think that massive plantings of Cab now ensued – in 1990, the variety still constituted less than 4% of the national vineyard.
It was only after political transformation, and the changes to the industry that this facilitated, that Cab really took off with it making up 13.4% of the national vineyard by 2005.
Today, it remains South Africa’s third most widely planted variety but it is well past its peak, total area having dropped by 17.5% from 2005 to 2015, 11 170ha in the ground at the end of that period. Stellenbosch continues to be the foremost Cabernet wine growing area with 28.4% of overall.
In light of the above, SA Cab might be considered a fairly recent phenomenon and yet it can’t be denied that it continues to captures the imagination of many. Are producers, especially Stellenbosch producers doing enough to leverage this? Similarly, can producers who specialise in the variety match their counterparts working with other varieties for innovation and general excitement?
Emile Joubert, wine industry public relations consultant , recently organised an informal tasting aimed at reminding all those in attendance of Cab’s virtues, the line-up as follows:
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