There I was on the Sawis website, checking up something for a foreign notable too lazy or ignorant to do their own checking (I like to help!), when I noticed something interesting in the list of Wine of Origin areas. OK, maybe only dull geeks will also find it interesting, but here goes…

The district called Cape Point, expressly created some years ago to give a terroir home to that fine winery Cape Point Vineyards, has been repealed – that is, it no longer exists. In its place is an extended new district (the area that’s a size above a ward in the nest of Russian dolls that makes up the WO system) called Cape Peninsula. (The pic on the right shows it marked as “4” – if you want a map of all the Districts, see here.) Apparently this happened at the formal request of Cape Point Vineyards, which will, from the 2014 vintage, declare Cape Peninsula as its area of origin.

It actually makes a whole lot of sense. Now, the wards of Constantia and Hout Bay will fall within the Cape Peninsula District instead of being district-less little dolls rattling around in the Coastal Region.

As I’m a bit hazy about the description of the new district, and going by the map, I’d guess that, of the few “inner-city” vineyards whose wines are bottled by Jean-Vincent Ridon, the Olympia Cabernet Franc form Kalk Bay will fall into this new district, while the Camps Bay Vineyard and the Clos d’Oranje in Oranjezicht will not.

So. Geekish stuff. As a geek, I’m reminded of two things. Firstly, how irritating it is that Sawis (exemplary in so many respects) doesn’t send out press releases when steps like this are taken.

Secondly, I’m reminded to wonder what is happening to the new regions proposed about three years ago to replace the absurd Coastal Region (absurd because it includes a lot of emphatically inland areas with no coastal significance, notably Paarl and Tulbagh). I reported on it, and criticised the new proposals, here.

The proposal was to create a Cape West Coast Region, to complement the newish Cape South Coast, as well as a Cape Coast Region, centred on Stellenbosch. Unfortunately, the proposals continued to include inland Tulbagh and Paarl – presumably for political reasons – under the new Coastal designations. The lack of progress in establishing new regions is probably for the same political reasons. Let me see if I can find out anything about this. Other geeks might like to know.