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Although South Africa is counted amongst the New World wine producers, the first grapes were pressed for wine at the Cape, in 1659 under Jan van Riebeeck.
 Jan van Riebeeck came to the Cape in 1652 to establish a settlement on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.
The first vines arrived in 1655 imported from France, the Rhineland and Spain. These were planted in the Company's Gardens, but Van Riebeeck also planted 1,000 vines at his own farm, Boscheuvel. His successor, Simon van der Stel, established his own farm on the lower slopes of the Steenbergen in Constantia. This was the origin of the famously historic sweet wines of Constantia.
For most of the 20th century, the local wine industry was controlled by the KWV or the Kooperatiewe Wijnbouwers Vereeninging Beperkt van Zuid-Afrika. Founded in 1918 to represent the interests of wine farmers and regulate the stable growth of the Cape's wine industry, it was privatised in 1997, allowing for the deregulation of the industry.
With political reform and the advent of democracy in 1994, there was an influx of financial and intellectual capital into the wine industry. Viticulturists began playing a far more prominent role and producers became keenly aware of the need to focus on noble cultivars, to use superior plant material and they also began adopting to the needs of the international markets.
Even though South Africa has been present on the world markets for no more than a decade-and-a-half - the country's wines consistently earn positive attention. They also win prestigious awards on showcases such as the International Wine & Spirit Competition and International Wine Challenge in London, Vinexpo in France, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles in Europe, S'lections Mondiales des Vins in Canada, as well as on other events.
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