So, let’s have a look at what the wine industry is doing to mitigate its impact. Agriculture is one of the biggest threats to environmental sustainability, gobbling up biodiverse indigenous vegetation to plant crops, polluting the air with chemical sprays, and sucking up our increasingly critical water supply.
In the Cape Winelands there are a handful of wine producers who are leading the way by propagating and planting varietals that ask a lot less from the environment and still produce the quality of wine the consumer demands.
Mediterranean cultivars offer new possibilities
Bosman Family Vineyards seem to be leaders in this area. Way back in 2004 when Climate Change reared its sweaty head, Petrus Bosman found that the volcanic island of Sicily had similar terroir to that of their Wellington farm. So he travelled there and found Nero d’Avola, their primary red grape, a resilient cultivar producing luscious bunches of healthy grapes. He brought back some cuttings, nursed them through a morass of red tape, propagated them in their own Bosman Adama Vine Nursery, and produced the first Nero wine in 2014. Since then, the Nero has gained a reputation as a quality red wine, though he will be the first to admit that marketing a new varietal in a well-established wine industry is very tough.
Since then, a number of Southern Mediterranean varietals have been planted by forward-thinking wine producers across the Winelands supplied by vine nurseries like Bosman Adama (BA), or industry-owned Vititec.
Gary Jordan of Jordan Wines planted his first Assyrtiko vineyards in 2019. This climate-resilient white grape cultivar originates from the volcanic Greek island of Santorini. “At a time when water is scarce, we planted Assyrtiko because it manages minimal watering and is fairly drought resistant,” explains Jordan. Since then, the Jordans have planted more vines, now totalling 6.59ha on this 164ha property.
“Most of our desired Assyrtiko site has now been fully planted and vines still need to come into full maturity. For now we will not be planting more and will focus on planting classic French varietals to replenish removed vines,” he adds.
Supporting Jordan’s experience, SAWIS stats show that a number of these resilient cultivars are being planted, though only a hectare or two at a time and probably used in blending, while the mainstay whites and reds are still being planted in significant quantities. Once again, the marketing of these ‘new’ cultivars is a big hurdle.
Broadening South Africa's cultivar base
Pilgrim Wines produces wines from a range of ‘new-to-South Africa’ cultivars. Sourced from little pockets of vineyards dotted across the Cape Winelands from the West Coast, through the Swartland and Breedekloof, and Stellenbosch. "Many of the Iberian and Mediterranean cultivars we work with are naturally accustomed to warmer, drier environments," explains Henry Kotzé, Pilgrim Wines co-owner and winemaker. "They can manage heat and water stress well, while retaining freshness, flavour and acidity. These are valuable characteristics as many South African wine regions move towards hotter and drier conditions".
Kotzé continues: "We have relied heavily on the traditional French cultivars for hundreds of years. Those cultivars will remain important, but it makes sense to broaden our viticultural base instead of expecting the same relatively small group of varieties to answer every future climatic challenge. At the same time, the commercial viability of rare cultivars remains extremely challenging because consumers simply do not know them.
"The response at the specialist end of the market has nevertheless been extremely encouraging. Our Grenache Gris 2025 received five stars and was named Wine of the Year in its category in the Platter’s 2026 guide. Recognition like that helps demonstrate that these are not merely experimental curiosities; they can produce serious, distinctive South African wines."
Where to from here?
Taking sustainability a step further, Bosman Adama Vine Nursery established a Cultivar Management Division that is pioneering the importation and evaluation of naturally disease-resistant (NDR) wine grapes (internationally known as PiWi varieties). Sourced from elite breeding programmes in Italy, Germany and the USA, these varieties are selected for their ability to thrive with minimal chemical intervention.
Head of Cultivar Management at BA, Wian Mouton explains: "The journey of these varieties is one of rigorous scientific evaluation. As material is released from our bio-secure quarantine facility, we plant out grafted vine cuttings in test blocks to evaluate their performance specifically within South African growing conditions. All these cultivars are resilient against downy and powdery mildew, while some of these cultivars also ripen early, well before the usual start of a Cape harvest. This means farmers save a significant amount of water that would have been used to irrigate the vineyards through our searing summer months. These vines also need only 1 fungicide spray a year, while conventional vineyards require around 5 sprays per year, which is a huge saving all round, especially for the environment."
The Bosman Adama Cultivar Management Division have been researching these vines for a number of years now. For the last two vintages, sample wines were made from some of these grapes at Stellenbosch University and then evaluated. Trial blocks of a few of the best performing grapes were planted out on the Bosman farm and the first viable harvest will happen this coming vintage: "As these varietals have unknown names like Sauvignier Gris, Muscaris and Solaris, as well as unknown flavour profiles, we’re unlikely to see these labels on wine shop shelves in the near future. However, until they become household names, they can still perform within the existing context". Mouton explains: "For a wine to be labelled a specific variety, say Chenin Blanc, it only needs to contain 85% of that varietal. So, we see that initially these new cultivars will be used to bolster volumes and improve the flavour profiles of existing, well-known cultivars".
Vititec has also imported several of these alternative cultivars with the aim of evaluating their suitability under South African conditions. Most of their cultivars are still in the development pipeline, undergoing heat therapy and other stages of virus elimination, and have not yet been released commercially.
These developments are exciting for both wine geeks and environmentalists but it’s going to take a combined effort from the industry to market these varietals and work together to create characteristic flavour profiles that will attract consumers and build cultivar names as brands on their own, as they have done with Pinotage, Chenin Blanc and the like.