Ep 577: The Wines of South Africa - Refresh

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week’s show is on South Africa, a much more historic region than many realize, it has been making wine for more than 350 years. Although considered a 'New World' wine region, winemaking and ethos are often more oriented towards the Old World. Its style often straddles the line between New and Old World, offering fruit-driven wines with minerality, earthiness, restraint, and higher acidity.

In this show, I talk about the unique conditions of this country, located between latitudes 27° and 34° south. I discuss the lengthy winemaking history, and how the Mediterranean climate, old soils, and a unique topography create world class wines of mainly Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage, and Merlot.

Photo: South African Winelands/Stellenbosch. Source: Canva/Getty Images

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.8	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and Certified Wine Dork.
0:21.3	I'm so glad you're listening to the show and you are learning more about wine.
0:25.8	Now that you're listening, you've got to put what you've learned into action.
0:29.0	There's no better way to get high-quality wines than shopping at my exclusive sponsors site.
0:33.9	Wine Access.com slash normal.
0:37.4	That's how you can join my wine club and let me and the
0:39.7	wine access team pick out six amazing bottles for you quarterly for just $150, which includes
0:45.9	shipping. Learn and get great wine at an affordable price. Go to wineaccess.com slash normal to sign up,
0:52.1	listen in the middle of the show for more details.
1:02.0	I am back after taking the week off last week for my big 30th birthday celebration.
1:07.9	Okay, if you do the math, obviously I'm not 30, but I'm pretending I'm 30 and I had an awesome time. I went with one of my very, very dear friends to New York, and we just
1:12.3	ate and drank great wine. If you're a patron, you can see all the details. I went over
1:17.5	at like all the restaurants, all the things that I loved. If you're an Instagram follower,
1:21.4	I also posted some pictures there. An excellent weekend, great way to usher in a new decade,
1:28.7	and that was super fun.
1:33.5	So hopefully you enjoyed the rebroadcast of the show with Kevin Pogue.
1:35.1	Such a fascinating show.
1:37.1	I definitely need to have him on again.
1:44.0	This week, this is part of my effort to renew some of the shows that really need a refresh. South Africa has not been covered in full
1:47.2	since episode 41. So that's over 530 episodes ago. I think it is time for a refresh. You'll be
1:56.1	seeing more of these out of me. I have covered so much new stuff, but I think it's time to go back into the
	...

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