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Years ago this week that wine was first made in South Africa. On February 2, 1659, Jan van Riebeeck, the colonial administrator of the Dutch Cape Colony on South Africa’s Western Cape, recorded in his journal: “Today, God be praised, wine was pressed for the first time from Cape grapes.” The grapes were probably Chenin Blanc, Semillon, and/or Muscat of Alexandria the cuttings for which, at Riebeeck’s request, had been sent from France.

Napa Valley is smaller than Chianti Classico.

Answer: False.

It’s the other way around. Chianti Classico is far smaller than Napa Valley—both in the overall size of the region and in planted acres of vineyards. The Chianti Classico zone is just 177,500 acres (71,800 hectares) in total size. By contrast Napa is 500,000 acres (202,343 hectares) overall. In planted acres of vineyard, Chianti Classico has 17,290; Napa has 45,000. (7,200 hectares versus 18,211 hectares). Correspondingly, about 3 million cases of Chianti Classico are made every year, while 9 million cases of Napa Valley wine are made. Of course, the denomination Chianti Classico is just a small central zone in the “heart” of Tuscany. The separate denomination Chianti is spread over a much larger area within Tuscany. If the statement had been “Napa Valley is smaller than Chianti,” the answer, shockingly enough, would have still been FALSE. Chianti covers 35,237 acres (14,266 hectares), about 10,000 acres less than the Napa Valley. All of this just goes to show how tiny many of the world’s top wine regions are, for Napa Valley accounts for just 4 percent of all the wine made in California and 0.4 % of all the wine made in the world.

Pomace

The mashed up solid residue of skins, stems, seeds and pulp that is left over after grapes are pressed. Pomace is often simply spread on vineyards where it decomposes. Or more enterprisingly, it can be… Continue reading

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