Warwick Estate is a high-end South African winery in the Stellenbosch region of South Africa. The Estate has a rich farming history dating back to 1771.

In the seventeenth century in southwestern France, an accidental breeding occurred between a red Cabernet Franc grape plant and a white sauvignon blanc grape plant and thus was born the most popular grape among American wine drinkers: Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cabernet Sauvignon is a red grape varietal known for its thick, durable skin, and the vine’s resistance to the elements. After the birth of the grape, the Cabernet Sauvignon varietal began to be adopted in parts of France by winemakers searching for more durable plants that were relatively easy to grow, and the grape found its champion in the region of Bordeaux.

The Bordeaux winemakers loved the grape’s healthy level of  tannins, which meant the wine could evolve in the bottle for many years. They also determined that it responded incredibly well to spending time in oak, as the oak brought out beautiful new flavours. The result was a wine that was full-bodied with a medium-level acidity that was fantastic for drinking with food. As they started playing with the varietal, they began blending it with other grapes, such as merlot, and created the world’s most famous wine blend: the Bordeaux blend.

As the Bordeaux wine blend evolved into one of the world’s most famous and highly coveted wines, the Bordeaux brand spread across the globe, and with the press for Bordeaux went the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. As the name of the grape spread, and more people around the world began to grow it, many took to calling Cabernet Sauvignon the great colonizer, as it became the most widely planted grape globally, until Merlot overtook it in the nineties.