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All Knowledge is Contained in Wikipedia
Jul. 7th, 2009 11:26 amOr maybe not, but I've just noted some history which is personally interesting.
One of the happenings during the aftermath of the French Wars of Religion was the Edict of Fontainebleau, in 1685. This removed the last protections of the Huguenots, reimposing religious intolerance, and causing large numbers of them to flee.
One of the places they fled to was South Africa. Being French, many of those fleeing were wine makers, which is why the South African wine industry is so ancient: it was actually founded by a bunch of French refugees.
One particular couple (Dutchman Gerrit Janz van Vuuren and his French Huguenot wife), settled in a place they apparently called 'pretty fields', or 'Bellinchamp'. A name that managed to mutate.
That's why 'Bellingham' wine has a foundation date of 1693 displayed on their labels. And it's also why there's no sign of the enterprise on our family tree: the name is an independent coinage.
(On the subject of that date: when in Tesco a few days ago, I noticed the bottles next to them on the shelves, from a rival winemaker, very, very prominently displayed a date of a few years earlier: 1687 if I remember correctly. Oh what a difference a few years makes!)
Ah, it's Boschendal - apparently The estate's title deeds are dated 1685, but this is likely to be a clerical mistake since the estate's first owner, Jean de Long, was one of the party of 200 French Huguenot refugees granted land in the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company in 1688
One of the happenings during the aftermath of the French Wars of Religion was the Edict of Fontainebleau, in 1685. This removed the last protections of the Huguenots, reimposing religious intolerance, and causing large numbers of them to flee.
One of the places they fled to was South Africa. Being French, many of those fleeing were wine makers, which is why the South African wine industry is so ancient: it was actually founded by a bunch of French refugees.
One particular couple (Dutchman Gerrit Janz van Vuuren and his French Huguenot wife), settled in a place they apparently called 'pretty fields', or 'Bellinchamp'. A name that managed to mutate.
That's why 'Bellingham' wine has a foundation date of 1693 displayed on their labels. And it's also why there's no sign of the enterprise on our family tree: the name is an independent coinage.
(On the subject of that date: when in Tesco a few days ago, I noticed the bottles next to them on the shelves, from a rival winemaker, very, very prominently displayed a date of a few years earlier: 1687 if I remember correctly. Oh what a difference a few years makes!)
Ah, it's Boschendal - apparently The estate's title deeds are dated 1685, but this is likely to be a clerical mistake since the estate's first owner, Jean de Long, was one of the party of 200 French Huguenot refugees granted land in the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company in 1688
