Today, God be praised, wine was pressed at the Cape for the first time."
So reads the Feb. 2, 1659, entry in the diary of Jan van Riebeeck, leader of the Dutch East India Co.'s settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. His words were written just five years after European vines were first planted at the southernmost tip of Africa. By the 18th century, South African Muscats were being served in Europe's royal houses; Napoleon drank a bottle a day during his exile on St. Helena. Jane Austen prescribed Cape Constantia wine for the brokenhearted Marianne in Sense and Sensibility....
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