Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
300-year-old grape makes comeback
White crystal certified again
SOME 300 years after it was last used to make wine, a traditional South African table grape known as white crystal, or kristal in Afrikaans, has again been certified for winemaking.
And a retired UCT professor says this recognition is just what’s needed to revive the local grape’s flagging fortunes.
White crystal, a sweet and almost translucent grape, was first grown in the Cape Colony some time before 1700, along with a number of varieties brought over from Europe for winemaking, according to Dr Jerry Rodrigues, formerly of UCT’s molecular and cell biology department.
What makes it unique is it was the first successful cross between two varieties on South African soil – the country’s first indigenous grape.
After being used to make sweet wines, it had by the mid19th century been superseded by new “noble” vine varieties imported from Europe.
It then found a niche as a successful table grape, but has suffered in recent decades as seedless varieties cornered this market.
Joseph Lombardt, of the South African Table Grape Industry, said no farmers on the association’s database were still producing it.
For Rodrigues, making wine from white crystal again will mean the grape has come full circle, possibly stimulating its return to the spotlight.
“Nobody has made kristalwyn for 300 years now,” he said, referring to it by its Afrikaans name.
Rodrigues has long been familiar with white crystal.
His father planted a vine at his home in 1961.
It lived 40 years and bore heaps of “sweet and crunchy” grapes.
After learning white crystal had been certified by the Wine and Spirit Board for winemaking in August, Rodrigues began investigating what its two “parent” varieties might be.
While it had been grown in South Africa for more than 300 years, it was not known which vines were crossed to produce it. What Rodrigues found, via DNA sequencing, was white crystal has a noble pedigree.
He identified semillon as one of white crystal’s “wine parents”; semillon is wellknown for the sweet white wines made from it in the Sauternais region of Bordeaux, France.
It was at a time the most planted grape in South Africa, before being overtaken by varieties such as cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay.
The other “wine parent” is unknown, but Rodrigues hopes further DNA research will find a match.
Living up to his title of “wine detective”, as he was dubbed by some of his colleagues, Rodrigues has some ideas about what it could be.
Speaking to Weekend Argus at his Plumstead home, where he has for two decades been nurturing a new red wine cultivar which he created and named cabernet labrusco, Rodrigues said white crystal must be a cross between two varieties that were brought to the Cape before 1700.
A “kristal-druif ” was men- tioned in a travelogue by Francois Valentijn, a Dutch visitor to the Cape, published in Amsterdam in 1726.
Given how common white crystal once was, Rodrigues expects many farmers have long- forgotten white crystal vines growing on their estates. “I am sure there are lots of Kristal druiwe around.”
The big question now is whether anyone will actually make wine from it. “We don’t know if it will be good wine yet. If not, it could always be used as a blend.”
jan.cronje@inl.co.za