Tiny Wine People Blog – Stories, Guides & Discoveries from the World of Small Wineries

Welcome to the Tiny Wine People blog

Welcome to the Tiny Wine People blog — your home for guides, stories, and insider tips on small, independent, and family‑run wineries. We celebrate boutique winemaking, hidden‑gem wine farms, and the people behind the bottles. Read regional guides, tasting notes, winery interviews, and practical tips to plan your next wine route.

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The most noble of Fungus

In the world of expensive wines, there is a rather strange category in which some of the most sought-after and costly bottles are made from grapes that look as though they should have gone straight ...

DIY Wine

What do you really need to start making wine? It is a fair question, because people have been making the stuff since at least 4000 BC, long before stainless-steel tanks, glycol cooling, cross-flow ...

The Wine Industry Needs Both Explorers and Builders

At any given wine tasting, the bottles attracting the most attention are often those that seem to break with convention. They may come from an unfamiliar site, use an overlooked cultivar, revive an ...

Do You Need to Own a Vineyard to Make a Serious Wine?

For a new winemaker, or anyone considering producing wine under their own label, this is one of the first fundamental questions, do you need to own a vineyard to make a serious wine? The romantic ...

Timing is Key

There is an old saying that the difference between a bad farmer and a good farmer is three days. It may sound overly simple, but anyone who has worked in agriculture understands how much truth it ...

Of tarred poles and wires

I thought this week we would stand still a little bit at trellising systems and why you would use them. A trellising system determines how the vine will grow, where the shoots and bunches will be ...

Training Day

Training a young vine is one of those jobs that looks simple until you actually have to do it. Then, very quickly, you realise that every cut matters. A vine might look like a bundle of shoots, ...

The first years

When we last left off, we were finally preparing to plant those long-awaited vines. After all the planning, soil preparation, site selection and layout decisions, planting day was beginning to feel ...

So you bought a wine farm

So you have finally bought that perfect farm, the one where you dream of producing wines that might one day be mentioned in the same breath as Rubicon or Château Pétrus. The land is yours, the ...

Viva la Revolución

With pressure and change comes innovation, and the South African wine industry is no different. Beneath the anxiety about shrinking vineyard hectares, stagnant wine prices, and the steady erosion of ...

Planting the Seed

Making good wine begins long before grapes are harvested and delivered to the cellar. The harvest itself is merely the culmination of years of preparation, planning, and patient cultivation. The true ...

How long does a wine last?

If you spend any time in the wine industry, you’ll know the question comes up again and again: how long can I store this wine? It’s the kind of question that seems simple on the surface but ...

Will the real South African wine consumer please stand up

This week I would like to take a more serious look at the state of the South African wine industry, which continues to face significant challenges. While the broader economy is far from thriving, the ...

Can it

Canned wine is often spoken about as if it were a brand‑new invention, a quirky indulgence for pastel‑clad millennials at garden parties. Yet the reality is far more complex. What we are ...

Diesel and Wine

In the hot desert of the Orange River the other day, I saw something that made me pause. Diesel at the local filling station in Upington had breached R30 a litre. That number 3 takes a few seconds to ...

The human element of Terroir

Standing atop Table Mountain this past weekend, I found myself constantly adjusting between wearing a sweater and taking it off as the clouds rolled in and lifted again, shifting the temperature ...

The perfumed one

Gewürztraminer has always been something of an outsider in the South African vineyard landscape. Among the noble French cultivars that dominate the country’s plantings, this grape with its sharp, ...

Ice ice baby

The past week in Stellenbosch has been nothing short of blistering. With temperatures soaring past the 40 °C mark, even the most seasoned Kaapie have found themselves reaching for shade, cold ...

The true story of Pinotage

Excuse the delay in bringing you this reflection a year late and a dollar short. Pinotage, South Africa’s very own grape variety, turns 101 years old this year. After the grand centenary ...

Put a cork in it

Few rituals in wine are as evocative as the squeak and pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle. That sound carries centuries of tradition, a promise of discovery, and a touch of theatre. Yet behind ...

Beyond the Cape: Emerging Wine Regions in Southern Africa

When people think of African wine, the image that most often comes to mind is South Africa’s Cape Winelands. The rolling vineyards framed by dramatic mountains, the magnificent Cape Dutch estates, ...

Low and No-Alcohol Wines: The Big Alternative That Could Save the Wine Industry

The global wine industry is facing one of its most challenging periods in modern history. Consumption has fallen to historic lows, and younger generations, those just reaching legal drinking age, are ...

Vineyard Spotter: A Small Game With Big Stories

Most of us drive past vineyards without a second thought. They blur into the background — neat rows of green, a bend in the road, something you notice only when the light hits just right. Yet every ...

Selecting the perfect grape

Harvest season is the most decisive moment in the winemaker’s year. After months of nurturing vines, protecting fruit from pests and weather, and carefully managing growth, the question every ...

Smoke Taint in Wine and the Unique Position of South Africa

Wildfires have become an increasingly pressing concern for the global wine industry, and South Africa is no exception. Each year, wine producers brace themselves for the possibility of devastating ...

The Prowler in Your Wine Glass: Rediscovering Cinsault

When South Africa’s wine identity is discussed, two cultivars inevitably dominate the conversation: Pinotage and Chenin Blanc. These grapes have become emblematic of the country’s viticultural ...

Homogenization of the Wine Industry

For centuries, the wine industry has thrived on its reputation for uniqueness. The very essence of wine culture is built around the idea that each vineyard, each terroir, and each grape variety tells ...

Here is to the new season.

Driving back down from the inland through the Karoo toward the Cape, there is a moment when the landscape shifts and the vineyards begin to open up in front of you. As soon as we hit De Doorns, the ...

Chenin Blanc, the adopted child of the South African wine industry

When wine lovers speak of Chenin Blanc today, many instinctively associate it with South Africa rather than its birthplace in France’s Loire Valley. Over time, the grape has become so deeply woven ...

The Complex Art of Choosing Barrels for Winemaking

When we think about wine, grapes naturally take centre stage. Yet, beyond the vineyard, one of the most influential elements shaping a wine’s character is the humble barrel. Originally designed as ...

Pet-Nat Sparkling Wine, The Ancient Method Making a Modern Comeback

First there was the Méthode Champenoise, then came Prosecco, and now we find ourselves in the era of Méthode Ancestrale, or Pet-Nat, as the cool kids like to call it. With the global move toward ...

Hybrid Vigor

For centuries the South African wine industry has been built on a familiar set of cultivars, with vineyards across the Cape dominated by names like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc, Shiraz and ...

Wine, Language, and Culture: Why South Africa Struggles to Make Wine Part of Its Identity

We in the wine industry often have a skewed view of how South Africa perceives wine. There is a reason people joke that Capetonians believe the world ends at the Huguenot Tunnel, our perspective can ...

The Rise, Pause and Reversal of Premiumisation: Where Does South Africa Stand?

To understand the concept of “reverse premiumisation,” one must first grasp the idea of premiumisation itself: the strategic effort to elevate the perceived value of a product, enabling ...

A World in Pink

The first heatwave of the year had just swept through the Cape Winelands, and I found myself trying to hide from it beside the majestic Berg River. A poorly timed nap next to the river left me ...

How to Be the Small Fish That Everyone Orders From

Mass marketing casts a wide net, you need to hand someone a glass and a reason to stay. Corporate wineries have ad budgets that could irrigate a small country. Good news is you don’t need any of ...

The experience of wine

Synesthesia is a fascinating perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway involuntarily triggers experiences in another. For example, someone might “see” ...

A sense of place

A while back, I was taking a walk in my neighbourhood and chose to take a path I have never taken before. I saw a few houses that I have never seen before. Including a small complex with about 15 ...

Greenwashing? Not On My Watch: A Guide to Reading Wine Labels (and the Fine Print)

I’ll confess: the first time someone told me to “avoid sustainability talk because it sounds like greenwashing,” I Googled the term with a glass in hand and a raised eyebrow. Turns out, ...

Anatomy of a wine show

As the final months of the year unfold, the wine world shifts into full swing. Awards season is upon us, bringing with it grand showcases and bustling tasting halls that pulse with anticipation. ...

Beer Had the Billboards. Wine Needs the Story

Back in 2015, Brand South Africa and Brand Finance released the Top 50 most valuable South African brands, and beer strutted onto the stage while wine stayed in the wings. Castle ranked No. 12, ...

Two Bottles in a Sideboard: A South African fortified wine reflection

In the sideboard of my grandparents’ dining room, nestled within the old farmhouse just outside Leeudoringstad, stood two bottles: one of brandy, reserved for a “brandy and coke” when ...

Cans, Kegs & Bagnums: The New Shape of Small-Batch Wine

Here’s the honest bit: small producers don’t win by doing the same things that the big guys are doing. We win by rethinking , in this case: the vessel. Cans, stainless kegs and cheeky ...

In defense of the Box

Let’s be honest, few beverages carry the weight of ceremony and critique quite like wine. From swirling glasses to solemn sniffing, wine culture has birthed an entire ecosystem of etiquette that ...

Shock, Awe… and 100 Points? A Friendly Rethink on Sensationalism in SA Wine

Did you feel that little jolt when the 2025 Tim Atkin MW South Africa Special Report dropped? According to News24’s summary of Tim Atkin MW’s 2025 South Africa Special Report, covering 2,000 ...

Kaas en Wijn

There’s a quiet but compelling revival underway in the wine industry of the Netherlands, a revival that may surprise many, especially those who don’t typically associate the Dutch with ...

​Shelf Appeal: Why Wine Still Needs to Dress to Impress

Growing up in Johannesburg, my earliest encounters with wine were less about the grape varietals and more about the labels that adorned the bottles. In the mid-2000s, brands like St Anna and Tall ...

West Coast is the best Coast

The west coast is the best coast, ask any one from this area and this is the answer you will get. This windswept coastline known for its crayfish and people as tough as the beloved bokkoms that sway ...

The story of Shiraz

Like all good stories the story of Shiraz in South Africa involves a mysterious and devilish rogue, a hand full of diamonds, some light smuggling and a good sprinkle of myth building to bring it all ...

Fermenting by Candlelight: Off-Grid Winemaking in the Modern Age

There’s a romance to winemaking. People imagine rolling vineyards, weathered barrels, and the gentle hum of fermentation in cool, dark cellars. But here in South Africa, the soundtrack has changed. ...