How South Africa's Most Iconic Wine Was Born at a Braai: Bruwer Raats
"South Africa is the oldest New World wine country on earth — and most people have no idea."
In 2000, Bruwer Raats bought land nobody wanted in a corner of Stellenbosch his neighbors called the ass end of the appellation. The soil was granite. The varieties were Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc. The price was right because nobody else was interested.
Twenty-six years later, Polkadraai Hills is a declared ward on the label. MR de Compostela — born one night over a braai, a hypothetical wine genie, and a question Bruwer asked his closest friend — is South Africa's most consistently decorated wine. And Bruwer is still farming the same granite.
The first South African guest in Wine Centric Show history, Bruwer covers the full arc: training in Bordeaux, Napa, Germany and Tuscany; why granite soil was worth more to him than prestige real estate in the Golden Triangle; the founding of MR de Compostela as South Africa's first voluntary 50/50 black-white wine company; the discipline of declassifying your only wine not once but twice; and why Chenin Blanc is to South Africa what Sauvignon Blanc is to New Zealand — and why that message still hasn't traveled far enough.
He also pairs four luxury sports cars with specific wines and vintages, tells the story of the traffic cop who joyrode his Ferrari to the pound, and closes with a four-bottle curriculum for anyone who wants to understand South African wine from the ground up.
Chapters:
00:00 – Cars & Wine: The Warmup Round
05:13 – The Ferrari Traffic Cop Story
06:42 – South Africa: History, Colonization & the Wine Industry
13:06 – Apartheid, Democracy & Moving Forward
18:36 – South African Wine's Moment in the US
19:43 – Why Polkadraai Hills? The Case for Granite
26:54 – Declaring a Ward: The Making of Polkadraai's Identity
34:38 – The Origin of MR de Compostela
40:11 – What Makes It "Ultra Premium"
47:46 – The 2010 & 2019 Declassifications
48:50 – Chenin Blanc as South Africa's Signature Variety
51:16 – The Pinotage Problem & the Path Forward
54:48 – A Four-Bottle South Africa Curriculum
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