by Gerd Hirschmann
posted
Aug 9, 2012
The continent of Africa has very little surface area suitable
for wine-growing. Almost all is too hot or too humid to grow
quality grapes with the exception of South Africa.
In the parts of Africa that lie in the Northern Hemisphere, the
entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea is above the 30th parallel
and, therefore at least theoretically, should be good wine growing
territory. But the lack of water in these northern fringes of the
Sahara Desert is problematic. While relatively little water is
needed for grape growing, a basic supply is essential. Also a
climatic hurdle is the absence of any significant maritime cooling
as the Mediterranean does not get as cold as other oceans and the
prevailing winds bring more hot inland air than cooling sea
breezes.
Lastly, northern Africa is predominantly Muslim and the
consumption of alcohol is doctrinally opposed and religiously not
tolerated. (Ironically, the word alcohol originated from
Arabic.)
However there are a number of wineries that produce wine for the
local communities of Christians, as well as tourists or for export.
The most active production is found in lands that were under French
control in the early 20th century: Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia,
collectively also known as the Maghreb. Libya is still strictly
opposed to alcohol, and in Egypt despite a long history of wine
making by the large Coptic Christian minority there is only a small
wine industry in the Nile Delta under state control.
Algeria was a French overseas department until its independence
in 1962 and during those times was a major source of basic table
wine for France with a production of over 200 million cases of wine
a year. But those days are gone and although Algeria remains the
second largest wine producing country in Africa, its wines are
rather marginal and barely a shadow of days past. With the Sahara
and the forbidding Atlas Mountains inland to the south, the grape
growing that is left is confined to the Mediterranean coast and
northern mountain slopes where the climatic conditions are the
least hot.
The majority of the wines are red and typically very high in
alcohol with low acidity. All of the three countries in the Maghreb
have the French appellation system still in place with several
designated AOC or AOG regions. The top growing varieties for the
area are Carignan, Grenache, Cinsault, and Muscat. While it might
be hard to find a bottle of wine labeled 'Made in Algeria' there
are still plenty of French blended wines that get a portion of
their grapes from there.
Tagged:
Wine Experiments, South Africa
