South Africa has won official international recognition for Sémillon Gris as a separate grape variety, with the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, or OIV, certifying the grape and naming South Africa as its country of origin.
The decision gives formal status to a grape that has been present in the Cape for centuries but had not previously been recognized as its own certified variety in international records. Sémillon Gris is a pink-skinned natural mutation of Sémillon Blanc. Producers and researchers in South Africa say it appears to be largely unique to the country in registered form, even though there have been anecdotal reports of vines in places such as Australia, California and possibly Bordeaux.
The recognition follows more than a decade of work by Andrea and Chris Mullineux of Mullineux & Leeu Family Wines, who pushed for formal certification while working with South African regulators and plant health authorities. Andrea Mullineux told Decanter that the process was unusually difficult because there was no established system for certifying a long-standing local mutation that was not being introduced through the normal import and quarantine route used for foreign varieties.
Cuttings from a 1960 vineyard in Paardeberg were taken in 2012 and treated through in vitro thermotherapy to remove pathogens. After that, the plant material was propagated, evaluated and certified. The work led to the establishment of a mother block at the Roundstone estate in Swartland in 2022. That block now provides healthy, certified material that can be planted by growers in South Africa and elsewhere.
The recognition is significant for South African wine because it gives the country a second grape variety it can claim as its own. The first is Pinotage, which was intentionally created in South Africa through crossing Pinot Noir and Cinsault. Sémillon Gris is different. It was not bred by a researcher or planted as a planned cross. It emerged on its own as a spontaneous mutation.
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