South Africa: Cap Classique Celebrates its 50th Anniversary

At a time when South Africa’s wine industry was still heavily dominated by co-operatives, Frans Malan, whose family produced grapes for a local co-operative, Malan “wanted to offer something different,” his son Johan Malan says. Rather than selling all the grapes to the co-op, he made the first wines under his own estate’s name, Simonsig, in 1968. Malan senior was also itching to go and learn about the classic European wine regions saying he “could not afford not to go.” In 1969 he thus set off to visit France and Germany. He was so inspired by Champagne that he wanted to make his own sparkling wine. Back in South Africa, however, he had no access to either Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, the grape varieties usually used to make Champagne. “So he decided to use Chenin Blanc to make traditional method sparkling wine,” his son recalls. This was a pioneering move: nobody in South Africa had any experience in or equipment for producing sparkling wines but Malan persevered. He decided to call his wine Kaapse Vonkel, Afrikaans for ‘Cape Sparkle’, a name that still graces every bottle of Simonsig’s fizz. It was not until 1979 that Boschendal in Franschhoek joined Simonsig in making sparkling wine. “It was a very small beginning,” Malan says.