Mapping Wine Achievement by Varietal and Region in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Mapping Wine Achievement by Varietal and Region in the Western Cape, South Africa.
By Jana Brady

Introduction

South Africa is known throughout the world for its exquisite diamonds and near endless supply of gold. Millions of visitors come each year in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Big Five, the Little Five, the Ugly Five or any other piece of 'wild' and 'untamed' South Africa. What many foreigners, especially Americans and non-Europeans, do not expect to see are rows upon rows of grapevines lining nearly every rural road across much of the Western Cape. Due to its relatively small market share, many people are completely unaware of the country's centuries old relationship with wine. 

Visitors to the region may wonder where all this wine is going, as it certainly does not stand out on our store shelves. The truth is a large amount of wine produced in South Africa is sold on the bulk market and would not be available in stores. The remaining wine, mainly exported to major markets like the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden, is sometimes perceived to be of low quality. This pilot project serves as a guide to the quality wine production in South Africa. It identifies the varietals and regions that are producing the best wine in the country.

Figure 1: Study Area

Background

Viticulture and wine making have deep roots in South Africa. European vines first arrived in the Dutch East India’s (VOC) Cape Colony in 1655 after Cape Commander Jan van Riebeeck surveyed the land and determined that the climate and terrain were suitable for growing grapes (Estreicher 2014). The winemaking tradition came later, between 1688 and 1689, with the arrival of French Huguenots seeking asylum in the Cape Colony. Lands granted to these refugees produced some of the best wine estates in the colony and many are still in operation today as well.

The modern South African wine industry has grown immensely over the past 20 years since the end of Apartheid. Producers have developed a strategy to focus on the “value-for-money” market to keep the industry afloat while select wine estates make a name for themselves in the higher end premium market. This strategy may work in countries like the United States where 80% of South African wine is exported as a packaged product. However, in countries like the United Kingdom or France only a small percentage exported wine is packaged. It may be harder to convince these countries of South Africa’s quality when consumers may not even realize they are drinking it.

One way to encourage high achievement in wine production is to institute an awards system. The Michelangelo International Wine & Spirit Awards was formed in 1997 and seeks out the best wines produced in the country. Each year an international panel of judges convenes to select the winners of 16 trophies and awards hundreds of other wines with either silver, gold, double gold or platinum medals (Michelangeloawards.com 2016).

Example of Michelangelo Award Label on Bottle. Credit: http://winemag.co.za/rijks-private-cellar-barrel-fermented-chenin-blanc-2009/ 

Project Goals

This is intended to be a pilot project using just 350 of more than 6,000 Michelangelo award winning wines. Although the sample is small, it is representative of the larger industry, covering many regions and varietals commonly found in the Western Cape. Breaking wine down by region serves two purposes: it identifies the climatic and environmental factors necessary to create good wines in a South African context and shows the grape cultivars that seem to be best suited for that task. The goal of this project is to show which regions are producing good wines and which varietals are the most successful within those regions.

Methodology

 As with many GIS projects, data collection was large, time consuming undertaking for this project. Although the steps are few, the actual work involved many hours of research and legwork. A list of Michelangelo winners is available on the award’s website and is the basis for all data included in this project. The list of winners included the estate, wine, and vintage, but varietals, Wine of Origin appellation, and GPS coordinates were obtained by searching through the Platter’s Wine Guide for each year represented.

 Once the data had been collected, I connected the large data set to CartoDB.com and began a new map. Using the ‘filter’ option, I filtered each Wine of Origin and created a new dataset from those queries. Then I made a new map that included datasets for the three largest producing areas from each category (regions, districts, and wards) and a fourth dataset that contained all of the remaining areas. It was necessary to combine the smaller areas because of CartoDB only allows four datasets to be used in the free version. I chose to represent the data using the ‘cluster’ wizard because I like that it includes the number of points on a particular area versus simply having a ‘more or less’ bar.

 This process was repeated for the varietals maps with the additional step of comparing the density of Pinotage wines to Chenin Blanc wines. I chose the density wizard because I wanted to show, region by region, which varietal was more prevalent. I also chose a darker background for this map to highlight the areas of lower density that were marked with a light color red or green.

 I used QGIS to make a heat map of the entire study area. I downloaded shapefiles with Local Municipalities, Provinces, and an outline of the entire country, then selected the relevant attributes and created new layers with just those features. I enabled the heat map plugin for this map and use it instead of the CartoDB heat map wizard because I think it is a better representation of the spatial distribution of the wine industry. Keeping it at a fixed scale forces the viewer to see in from a wider perspective. CartoDB’s ability to zoom makes their heat map ineffective because the further in you zoom, the fewer elements you have to include in the heat map.

  Project Limitations/Next Steps

 Data availability was the biggest drawback of this project. I had found many helpful datasets and shapefiles from the Cape Farm Mapper, a mapping tool from the Western Cape Department of Agriculture that was released on April 1st. Unfortunately, when I contacted the GIS specialist in that department, they were only allowed to give me the shapefiles of which they were custodians. They referred me to the South Africa Wine Information and Systems as guardians of the shapefiles I was looking for, but after speaking with their CEO, Yvette Van der Merwe, I was informed that the GIS specialist was on vacation.

 At this stage the project has limited significance because of the small number of data points included. Although I do feel these are representative of the wider industry, and therefore believe the pilot project to be successful, I think it the maps will be much more compelling once all the data is included.

 I think the project would also benefit from including other wine awards, like the Veritas or Decanter. This might help reduce the number of wines from around 6000 to a number more manageable and relevant. Perhaps multiple award winning wines would be a better indicator of quality. Additionally, adding in climate or topographical data would be useful in determining what the physical requirements are to making a great South African wine.

  References

Anderson, K., & Aryal R., N. (2013). Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? A Global Empirical Picture. University of Adelaide Press.
Estreicher, S. K. (2014) A Brief History of Wine in South Africa. European Review, 22, 504-537.
SAWIS (2015) “South African wine industry statistics”, Paarl, South African Wine Industry Information and Systems.
"About Us – The Michelangelo International Wine & Spirit Awards of South Africa." The Michelangelo International Wine Spirit Awards of South Africa. Accessed May 06, 2016. http://michelangeloawards.com/about-us/.

Award Winning Wine Representing Production Regions, Districts, and Wards in the Western Cape, South Africa

These maps show wineries with award winning wines per production region, districts within the Western Cape of South Africa. The division of production areas represent an interesting aspect of wine--the importance of terroir. Terroir is a French word that is difficult to translate into English, but roughly describes the interplay between climate, soil, and topography and how those environmental factors effect the characteristics of wines produced from the area. Old World wine regions, like France and Italy place great emphasis on the importance of terroir, so much so that the actual varietals used in their wines is less noteworthy than the region the wine comes from. This practice is less common in New World Regions, like the United States and Australia, where wines are known by their varietals rather than their production region.

The Wine of Origin label can only be applied if all grapes used to create the wine were grown within the boundaries of the specific appellation. The Western Cape is the largest appelation and covers grapes grown anywhere in the province. This label is typical used by bulk producers who are not attached to vineyards and can purchase grapes from across the province to ensure the best price. 

There are five production regions: Coastal, Breede River Valley, Cape South Coast, Klein Karoo, and Olifants River. Only two regions are represented in these maps: Coastal and Breede River Valley. The Coastal appellation has been widely considered the best wine producing region in the Western Cape as cooling Atlantic ocean breezes sweep over the vineyards cooling them off from the intense heat. Stellenbosch and Paarl, two historic wine cities, are part of this region. Robertson and Worcester are the two historic, although less prestigious, wine cities in the Breede River Valley region.

There are 26 production districts, including two located outside of the Western Cape. These appellations have the largest number of award winning wines, particularly from Robertson, Stellenbosch, and Worcester. This is the appellation most commonly used by wine cooperatives in the area. These co-ops contract with wine farmers in each district and sell both packaged and bulk wines. 

There are 67 production wards in South Africa with three falling outside of the Western Cape. Some districts have multiple wards, for instance, Stellenbosch includes Banghoek, Bottelary, Devon Valley, Jonkershoek Valley, Papegaaiberg, Polkadraai Hills, and Simonsberg - Stellenbosch. These are geographically small areas that are used by wine estates with the ability to grow completely on premises. For this reason, wards account for the smallest amount of production in the industry. These appellations have the wides spatial distribution of the all the production areas. The ward map shows that, yes, a lot of good quality wine comes from well known areas, but there are newer wards, like Hemel-En-Barde Ridge, making names for themselves.

Wine Production Regions, Districts, Wards - Western Cape 

Michelangelo Award Winning Wine Varietals in South Africa; Pinotage and Chenin Blanc Head-to-Head

These maps show the spatial distribution of winning wine grape varietals in South Africa. I chose top four varietals of each color for still, non-fortified wine. The top red wines are Pinotage, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz (SAWIS 2015). The top white wines are Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Viognier (SAWIS 2015).  

Old World countries are known for distinct wine appellations that produce a specific type of wine that can only come from a particular region. Only sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France can be labeled as Champagne and likewise for many other notable wines such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Prosecco. New World countries have taken a different, varietal-forward, approach. New World regions often have a one varietal that they do exceptionally well, see Zinfandel in the United States, Malbec in Argentina, and Shiraz in Australia. South Africa’s take on this trend is a hybrid Pinot Noir and Cinsaut (known as Hermitage in South Africa) grape called Pinotage.

A dark, full-bodied wine, Pinotage was hybridized and developed in South Africa by viticulturist from Stellenbosch University (Estreicher 2014). It is the most common red grape planted in the Western Cape, but it is a rarity outside of the country with just a 0.14% share of the global market in 2010 (SAWIS 2015, Anderson 2013). Another top contender for South Africa’s signature grape is the white Chenin Blanc. Originally from France, it is the mostly commonly grown white grape in the Western Cape and has a larger presence on the global stage with a 0.26% share (SAWIS 2015, Anderson 2013).  

The white varietal map shows that Chenin blanc is distributed pretty widely across the area with no one or two vineyards producing the majority of it. The same cannot be said for Pinotage, which has distinct areas of greater production, particularly Durbanville, Stellenbosch and Paarl. The density analysis of red versus white varietals shows a clear preference for Pinotage.