of oidium-decimated European crops, but that was a temporary respite, and matters became worse still after 1861, when a British trade treaty with France reduced duties on that country’s wines. All supplier countries to Britain were now to be treated equally, with duties being differentiated only on grounds of alcoholic strength—a further blow to the Cape, whose wines were routinely heavily fortified to help them withstand the rigors of the sea voyage to Europe. In 1862, Cape wine exports to Britain were down to 356 leaguers, less than they had been in 1814.
Britain, in the years of preferential tariffs, was taking some three-quarters of the Cape’s wine exports. The absolute total exports sometimes varied as wildly from year to year as did total production. For example, in 1816 total wine production (excluding brandy) was 15,398 leaguers (50 percent more than in the following vintage); total exports were 3,647 leaguers (of which 70 percent went to Britain). In 1823 production was 21,147 leaguers (5,000 more than in the previous year) and exports 7,013 (not much different from the previous year). In the years when exports to Britain were falling, there were renewed attempts to strengthen other markets—including the United States, which was a moderately successful outlet for a time, with an average of 23 leaguers going there annually in the 1835–1854 period. The basic problem, apart from import duty anomalies, seems to have been, as so often, that Cape wine could not compete on a quality level with suppliers from Europe. But in the nineteenth century, Cape wine was exported to a remarkable number of countries (if not consistently), from Jamaica to Australia, and from India to Sweden.
Despite undoubted hardships for many wine farmers, the wine industry somehow more than survived the problems occasioned by falling exports. In 1865 the number of vines was over 55 million (there were 31 million in 1825), and production rose significantly, at least helped by a burgeoning population. An increasing proportion of the surplus was diverted to brandy over the following century. Cape brandy had been, according to an anonymous writer in 1820, “one of the worst and most pernicious spirits ever produced.” Now there were concerted attempts to encourage an improvement, both to make it more widely salable and to make it acceptable for fortifying wine: most dealers with any ambitions for quality used imported French brandy for that purpose. Quantities as well as quality rose: in the twenty-five years before 1860 production nearly quadrupled, to about 4,000 leaguers.
There was less improvement with wine. Authorities and commentators continued to blame and lament the quality of Cape wine (Constantia always excluded) and insist on the desirability of raising standards—an “imperious necessity” Governor Bourke called it. In fact, reading many of the contemporary accounts, one wonders how the stuff ever got sold at all, let alone drunk. In 1824, at the height of exports to England, a Cape newspaper noted, “With regard to Cape Madeira, and the Wines in General of this Colony, it is a fact which is acknowledged by everybody, that nothing is so bad in England as the Wines of the Cape.” Descriptions abound of “miserable trash” that is “villainous,” “execrable,” “filthy,” and so on—with, as well as “an undisguised taste of brandy,” a frequently observed “earthy taste.” Too often and too easily Cape wine “turned sour” in transit and arrived at its export destination undrinkable. A frequently occurring complaint was that Cape wine was sold too young: it would appear that it required at least a year’s maturation, preferably more, before it was palatable.
What were the types of wines being made in the Cape in the first half of the nineteenth century, and why hadn’t quality been improved? Mention has been made of the near monopoly of the vineyards by Greengrape, later identified as Sémillon. As to types of wine, it is impossible to penetrate behind most of the various names and usefully ponder how Cape Malaga, Vintint, Moselle, Hock, and Vin de Graves were discriminated, and how they differed from Cape Madeira. It would seem that a turn from sweet wines at the beginning of the century (Cape Madeira, Steen, and Hanepoot seem to have been sweet) to predominantly dry wines by the middle of the century is ascribable to British taste. Virtually all these wines (though probably not usually Constantia) were to some degree fortified.
Blame for their poor quality was, unsurprisingly, disputed. A few perceptive observers noted viticultural problems, while “slovenly” winemaking was frequently cited; many noticed wine farmers picking unripe grapes and including leaves, earth, and rotten grapes, allowing the wine to ferment at too high a temperature, the misuse of sulfur, dirty casks (there seems to have often been a severe shortage of suitable containers, many of which might have been used for highly unsuitable contents in their journey to the colony)—and, above all, a general dirtiness. But if the wine farmers were negligent, and frequently excoriated by the Cape Town dealers who took in most of the colony’s wine production, many implicated the dealers, too. One commentator spoke of them as treating the wines they purchased from farmers “as raw materials, to be altered and fashioned according to their own taste and judgement. An injudicious tampering with it has deteriorated instead of improving the commodity.” Furthermore, it was rather convincingly suggested, “the wine boers were encouraged to make the greatest possible quantity of wine, with entire disregard for its quality.” Dealers in England did not go unblamed either, as many travelers noted that Cape wine tasted better in its land of origin, and ascribed this to “altering and fashioning” in London more than to the sea voyage between the two places.
Generally, however, it was clear that the primary need was to improve winemaking techniques. Many attempts were made by government as well as private individuals and bodies to improve matters. Farmers were offered information through newspaper articles, pamphlets, and handbooks about the best viticultural and winemaking methods; Governor Cradock promised “premiums and rewards . . . for the production of the best Wines,” and established an office of Wine Taster intended to control the quality of wine bound for export. Regulations attempted to ensure that wines were sufficiently aged, and suchlike. A Cape Wine Trade Committee representing growers, manufacturers, and merchants was established in 1826 in the wake of the export market’s collapse. Unfortunately, because of the structural impediments for most farmers of a lack of capital and a lack of price incentive, all these attempts proved futile. Most Cape wine—and even more, Cape brandy—remained “damnable poor stuff.”
Accounts of winemaking at the Cape right up to the end of the nineteenth century seem to indicate a fairly standard approach—probably the most significant difference would be the state of the grapes when picked, the cleanliness of the cellar, and the state of the casks used for fermenting and maturing the wine. Otto Mentzel, a German resident in the Cape in the 1830s, describes the standard means of pressing: “A ‘balie’ or barrel, (usually a leaguer cask cut in two) which is pierced at the bottom and along the sides with many holes made with an half-inch drill, stands on a trestle in a second larger barrel, without holes except for a bunghole, through which the must that is trodden out, passes into a pail or barrel placed beneath it. A slave stands in the perforated barrel, holds onto a short piece of rope stretched above him, and treads the grapes with which it is filled with bare feet.” Carl Thunberg, traveling in the Cape in the 1770s, also observed this basic process, adding, “the must that runs out is put into large high vessels to ferment.” Then “the trodden grapes, before they are farther pressed, are put, stalks and all, upon a coarse strainer (or the bottom of a bed) made of rattans, on which they rub the fruit with their hands, till the husks go through it, the stalks in the meantime remaining behind, which are now separated and thrown away, as they are supposed to make the wine austere and bitter. The husks are then put into the fermenting-vessel, which the next morning is in full fermentation.”
Rather more horrified, Baron Carl von Babo, the government viticulturist toward the end of the nineteenth century and a passionate advocate of improved winemaking methods, spoke in a government report of “a number of half-naked coloured men” trampling the grapes with feet carrying “acetous germs” from the wine-splashed floor, not to mention dirt and sweat: “Although this does not perceptibly increase the quantity,” Babo noted, “it certainly imparts a most objectionable bouquet to the wine.” He added, “Juice, husks and stalks are thrown together into the fermenting tubs, and the astringent harsh tannin is thus extracted.”
Making the best red wine, Mentzel suggested, requires removing the stems before the
