Day 6: Freedom in a Glass
South Africa's post-apartheid wine revolution — the Black winemakers rewriting history, the farm that gave a third of its equity to workers, and the Springbok front-rowers who made wine after winning the World Cup.
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This is the emotional heart of the Cape Wine Odyssey. The wine industry was built on the labor of enslaved people (63,000 between 1658 and 1807) and maintained through the dop system — paying farm workers in cheap wine instead of money. Legal into the 1960s, it persisted informally for decades longer.
After 1994, everything changed. Solms-Delta hired historians and archaeologists who unearthed 7,000 years of Khoisan history on the property. Owner Mark Solms transferred a third of the estate's equity to 180 farm workers. The Museum van de Caab on the estate tells the story of the people who actually built Cape wine.
The new wave of Black-owned labels is growing. Thokozani ("to be happy" in Zulu) was one of the first. M'hudi Wines is named after Sol Plaatje's 1930 novel — the first novel published in English by a Black South African.
In 2025, three Springbok front-rowers launched Bomalumz Wines — Trevor Nyakane, Ox Nche, and Bongi Mbonambi — after back-to-back World Cup victories (2019 and 2023). Black Springboks claiming space in a historically white industry, using rugby fame to rewrite the wine story.
The new generation is different. Lukas van Loggerenberg broke his kneecap on his debut 2016 vintage and called his rosé "Break a Leg." By 2025, his Graft Syrah was rated #2 wine in the world by Vinous. Craig Hawkins invented the orange wine category in South Africa. Duncan Savage makes Follow the Line Cinsault in an urban winery in Salt River — 95 points from Tim Atkin.
Freedom isn't a marketing slogan here. It's a vintage.
Stops
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New Voices: South Africa's Black Winemakers
Carmen Stevens was turned away from wine school twice because of her colour. She became SA's first Black winemaker in 1995. Ntsiki Biyela saw her first vineyard in 1999 - now Aslina wines is one of the most allocated labels in the country. Thokozani turned farm workers into shareholders. This is wine's most powerful story.
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Groot Phesantekraal: The Pirate, The Enslaved Woman, and Every Bottle That Tells Her Story
Angela van Bengal was enslaved by Jan van Riebeeck himself. Freed in 1666, she bought land on the Heerengracht (today's Adderley Street) -- becoming the first Black person to own land in the Cape Colony. Her daughter Anna married Olof Bergh, a Swedish explorer caught stealing from two shipwrecks who spent 4+ years on Robben Island. After prison, Bergh got farmland that became Groot Phesantekraal. When he died in 1724, Anna inherited everything -- unprecedented for a woman, let alone a formerly enslaved woman. Today, the "Anna de Koning" Chenin Blanc honours her story on every bottle.
tasting $$