Six years ago I got the chance to travel around the wine country of South Africa, which is not too far from Cape Town, with Vineyard Brands. They’re a company that imports numerous wines from South Africa and other countries. So it’s wonderful to circle back to that visit by chatting with Jean-Baptiste Cristini, who’s in charge of sales and marketing for two wineries, Fairview and Spice Route, on the latest episode of my podcast.

I rang Jean-Baptiste at his Cape Town home, and we start our talk with Spice Route in the Swartland. (Vineyards pictured above and see map below.) It’s a much more unforgiving, yet rewarding, location for grapes that the more lush wine areas of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. Here you’ll find a lot of red wine grapes. At the cooler Darling region, geographically within Swartland but a separate vino zone, there’s a bit of white wine in the form of Chenin Blanc and Viognier.