Enjoying South Africa’s secret French connection

One aspect of the old South Africa’s racial policies cannot be faulted. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Huguenot refugees arrived at the Cape. Within a few decades, they had been culturally cleansed, abandoning the French language and becoming decent Afrikaners. If only we had possessed the foresight to do something similar in Quebec. But the immigrants were allowed to retain a legacy of their grenouille past: wine-making skills. They planted vineyards around Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, creating a great oeno-phile tradition which still flourishes.

The terroirs are in achingly beautiful terrain. Early on my first visit to South Africa, in 1984, I met a chap who had been working in the President’s Council — the equivalent of our Cabinet Office — at a senior level, but was giving that up for a chair at Stellenbosch, though he was only in his late thirties. I asked him why the devil he was rusticating himself and got only mumblings for an answer.