Best Wineries in South Africa
We’ll be honest: as a couple of Americans, we didn’t have high hopes for South African wine. It’s not our fault! It’s a region that’s massively underrepresented in local wine stores. While landing in Cape Town, we knew that our mission was to find the best wineries in South Africa. But will there be any?
We could not be more wrong. In fact, narrowing down our list of the best wineries in South Africa was a much harder task than we thought.
Our search for the best wineries in South Africa
South Africa is considered the ninth largest producing wine region in the world. Thus, `basing your bottle decision on the best wineries in South Africa can feel overwhelming!
Our approach anywhere we go is to seek out recommendations from local winemakers, sommeliers and fellow wine geeks at wine bars. We also search for festivals and wine paring menus that will give us variety and might introduce us to hidden gems.
In South Africa we were able to taste at 75 wineries, 2 wine festivals and enjoyed bottles/glasses of another 40+ producers during our stay. We’ve narrowed down a list of top producers for this post, sorted by region and general style. Our top 10 favorite producers are in bold.
Best Wine Producers by Region in South Africa
Swartland – The most “trendy” but also interesting wine region these days. A focus on natural wines that are complex and continue to evolve in your glass.
- AA Badenhorst
- Hogan Wines
- Intellego
- Mullineux
- Sadie Family Wines
- Terracurra Wines
- Testalonga
- Thorne and Daughters
Hemel en Aarde – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and MCC (SA’s Sparkling Wine). Cool climate and Burgundian in style, but packing a healthy dose of a red fruit so that you can’t mistake this for an old world Pinot Noir.
- Ataraxia
- Creation Wines
- Domaine Des Dieux
- Newton Johnson
- Restless River
- Storm Wines
Elgin/Bot River – Classic Burgundian Pinot Noir style, dirty and earthy. Also good Chenin Blanc coming from this area.
- Catherine Marshall
- JH Meyer
- Luddite
- Richard Kershaw
Stellenbosch – South Africa’s most well-known region – with a hot and dray climate with granite and sandstone soils. You’ll find most grape varietals planted here.
- DeWaal
- Hartenberg
- Keermont
- Richard Hilton
- Radford Dale
- Waterford Estate
Robertson – This is a warmer and dry climate, but nighttime temperatures dip quite significantly. We were shocked to learn that 80% of South Africa’s Chardonnay comes from Robertson.
- Arendsig
- De Westhoff
- Kranskop
- Springfield
Constantia – The closest wine region to Cape Town, Constnatia is known for it’s Vin de Constance sweet wine.
- Klein Constantia (Vin de Constance, Sauvignon Blanc)
