I’ve come to realize that for a country the produces some of the world’s best wine, there isn’t much of a wine culture outside of the Western Cape. The only time most people enjoy wine is at home or when they’re eating out. We definitely do consume lots of it: wine is the second highest consumed beverage in the country, just after beer; So why isn’t there a widespread wine culture in the country? I’m talking wine tastings, events and bars, or even champagne bars whose focus is actually champagne. I know there are various wine festivals that take place here and there but how inclusive are they? (Shout out to Soweto Food and Wine Festival)

Anyway, getting into the gist of this post. I’ll be covering some of the jargon commonly used in the wine community. I’ll also add a food/wine pairing guide in the latter part that is based on some research and experimenting that I’ve been doing with the help of Spier Wines. So most of the tasting notes are based on Spier Wines.