Wine regions of South Africa

Mirroring the French Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) system, all South African wines listing a "Wine of Origin" must be composed entirely of grapes from its region.

As a result, the WO does not place adjunct regulations on wine regions such as delineating permitted varieties, trellising methods, irrigation techniques, and crop yields.

The WO system divides growing regions into four categories.

The largest and most generic are Geographical Units (such as the Western Cape region) which subsume the smaller, but still broad spanning Regions (such as Cape South Coast).

Although these are geographic units, regions and districts are largely traced by political boundaries (wards are the segment most defined by unique, Terroir characteristics).