The Cape Winelands Cultural Landscape

South Africa (Africa)
 

Date of Submission: 24/06/2004
Category: Cultural
Submission prepared by:
Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport - Cape Town
Coordinates:
18°34' E / 34°16' S
Ref.: 1922

Themes

• Cultural landscapes

Description

Together with three soil types - granite, shale and sandstone - the mediterranean dimate of the Western Cape, Influenced by maritime conditions and mountainous terroir, is viticulturally ideal for growing good grapes.



Historic overview of the wine industry In the Cape



The first vines at the Cape were planted in 1655 in the Company Garden to provide the Dutch East Indica Company (DEIC) fleets with fresh produce, water and wine for their long voyages to the East Indies and Europe. After the small land grants along the Amsel (now the Liesbeeck) River on the slopes of Table Mountain were made to the first 49 Free Burghers in 1657, more vines were planted. Barely two years later, on 2 February 1659, the first wine was produced at the Cape. By 1680 more than 100,000 vines were planted in the Constantia valley by Governor Simon van der Stel. After the French king Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, 150 Huguenots and their families were brought to the Cape and from 1688 were given land grants, primarily In the Upper Berg River. They brought with them the knowledge of viticulture, which helped to promote and advance the prosperity of the Cape. From 1761, Constantia was regularly exporting red and white wines to Europe.



When the British took control of the Cape in 1795, the wine trade and brandy production boomed

and a dramatic rise in wine export occurred during the first half of the 19`h century. However, by

1861 Great Britain and France entered into a trade agreement and the subsequent lowered Import tariffs on French wine imported into Britain negatively impacted on Cape wine exports. To



make things worst, the phylloxera louse (Phylloxera vastatrix) created havoc In the Cape winelands from 1885 after decimating vineyards in Europe.



After the South African War (1899-1902), vineyards were re-established with vines grafted onto phylloxera-resistant rootstocks imported from the United States of America. In 1906, the first South African wine co-operatives were formed in' response to the depression in the wine and spirit industry. Regulations for cultivation and prices were established, followed by a quota system to curb over-production. This was followed by the formation of the Ko-operatiewe

W,ynbouwers Vereniglng van ZuiurAfrika Beperkt (KWV) In 1918. In 1924 an American doctor,

Jack Winshaw, and a local farmer began producing natural wine. In 1935 Stellenbosch Farmers' Wineries was registered as a public company, followed In 1945 by the establishment of the Distillers Corporation. The dawn of a democratic South African society at the end of the 20th century also heralded the abolishment of the over-controlled wine industry.



Development of a Cape vernacular architecture



From the outset and following the example of the indigenous Khoikhoi, the European settlers and slaves at the Cape were dependent on the availability of local materials. A limited amount of building materials, such as hard timber and tiles, were imported from Madagascar, Mauritius, the East Indies and the Netherlands. Sun-dried bricks were produced to build walls, trees on the slopes of the mountains were felled and hand-sawed into beams, rafters, doors and window frames, while the readily-available reeds of the Cape fynbas was used as thatching material. The Cape Iimekilns were filled with shells from the beaches or, further Inland, with limestone to produce time for building purposes. Bamboo was planted to supplement the shortage of timber for construction purposes.



Some of the characteristic elements of the Cape vernacular architecture were established during the visit to the Cape in 1685 of a High Commissioner of the DEIC who gave instructions to the then Governor that all new buildings of the Company at the Cape had to be constructed with local stone at least up to window-sill height, had to be plastered and then whitewashed to protect it from the notorious Cape winter weather (there was not enough timber available to produce hard-baked bricks) and low walls were to be built to connect buildings to create an enclosed farmstead that resembled a Dutch "hofstede". This was the origins of the ring-walled farmsteads and DEIC outposts that dots the Cape landscape. By 1692 land was granted to both Free Burghers and freed black slaves. Even the Governor applied these instructions and he added the latest mathematical and scientific principles from Europe to personally set out one such an outpost of the Company, Vergelegen, It was also here that his son, Willem Adriaan van der Stel, experimented with a wide variety of exotic fruits and vegetables, sourced from all over the globe, that laid the basis of the commercial agricultural development in South Africa.



Following the prosperity that the 18th century brought to the Cape, farmsteads, originally simple and basic utilitarian, acquired gables - the earliest dated from the mid 18th century. Many of the 63,000 slaves and political exiles brought to the Cape prior to 1815 were skilled craftsmen and women and were instrumental in the development, interpretation and decoration found in the Cape's vernacular architecture, reflecting the cultural diversity and unique stylistic influences of Africa, Europe and Asia. In most cases structures have the personal signatures of unknown individuals who meticulously worked on the elements that make up the whole - sometimes sophisticated, sometimes naive. The Cape vernacular architecture even triggered a Revival Cape Dutch movement during the 20th century throughout Southern Africa.