Clifford Roberts from Visit Winelands South Africa recently featured a blog post on Elgin Wines, which includes the fascinating history of winemaking in The Elgin Valley, several overarching characteristics of the cool climate wines and the landscape that makes up this beautiful valley. This forms part of a month long feature on all that there is to Experience Elgin’s beautiful wine route.
The rural area of Elgin lies just east of Cape Town, a wide plateau of undulating hills surrounded by mountain peaks. Its cool climate, the combination of elevation and proximity to the sea, allowed apple and pear farming to thrive for decades. Forestry makes up another important part of the local economy and wine, too. The combination along with a large part of the region being part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, adds to its attraction as a breakaway for lovers of the outdoors.
Lush greenery is a feature year-round and one of the reasons the region was known as Groenland (Greenland) by early settlers. They also gave called it Elgin, apparently in honour of a child named Elgine Herold who died here.
