The Central Drakensberg mountain range stands behind Cathedral Peak Wine Estate in South Africa.
Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg
South Africa’s Winemakers Open a New Frontier in the Dragon Mountains
Producing wine at 1,100 meters means turning tradition on its head.
South Africa’s wine industry is centered around Cape Town. But pioneers far to the northeast are forging a new frontier in unlikely surroundings as changing weather patterns test long-held conventions.
Cathedral Peak wine estate’s vines grow in the foothills of the Central Drakensberg, or “Dragon Mountains,” the towering range that forms a natural western boundary for KwaZulu-Natal province. Producing wine here at 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) means turning tradition on its head and nurturing grapes in steamy summer rainfall, rather than the Mediterranean climate and cool, wet winters of the much more celebrated Western Cape.