First wine pressed at the Cape

On 2 February 1659, Jan van Riebeeck recorded that wine had been pressed for the first time from Cape grapes. The vines had been brought to the settlement in 1655 and cultivated as part of the Company's efforts to make the station more self-sufficient. The first pressing was small: the journal describes young vines and different grape varieties, and later summaries calculate roughly twelve mengelen of must, about fourteen litres.

The pressing demonstrated that imported vines could bear fruit in the Cape and encouraged further planting by the Company and free burghers. The work of planting, tending and harvesting formed part of the settlement's wider agricultural and labour system.

Significance

The first pressing established local wine production as a practical possibility. Over subsequent decades viticulture expanded alongside wheat farming and private landholding, becoming a major element of the south-western Cape's agricultural economy.