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Wherever and whenever I travel, I rummage through all the travel guides looking for "wine", "vines", "wineries", "viticulture" - in the worst case, if nothing else can be found - "food and drink" will have to suffice. This time I was unlucky, there was really nothing to be found in Namibia. Not in the Polyglott, not in the Baedeker, not even in Dumont's "Richtig Reisen", but then, in the Marco Polo the first hint under "Essen & Trinken": "A special treat are some of the wines from Namibian cultivation." Just as I thought! For too long - 75 years - Namibia has been under South African rule. This must also have influenced the beer bliss of 31 years of German colonial rule.

Vines on the Kalahari farmhouse in Stampried (near Mariental)

Already on the drive to the capital Windhoek, I ask the driver who picked us up at the airport whether Namibian wines were available. "Not any more," he tells us and shows us a small hill built over near the Catholic church. "There used to be vines there. They were grown by the missionaries. These needed the wine for Mass and even more to quench their thirst!" Indeed, today the chic gourmet restaurant "Am Weinberg" stands where vines once stood and where there is a magnificent view over the city.

I remember my Uncle Paul, the missionary in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), telling me on his home leaves that they planted vines on their mission station in addition to vegetables and fruits. He did not say how the wine tasted. I didn't ask him either, because I was still almost a child at the time.

Used Bordeaux barrels at the lodge serve as decorative elements

Our driver then immediately told the first wine story: "The wine "from the "vineyard" in Windhoek, the "Catholic" one, is said to have been the better one, while the other one, the "Protestant" one, tasted rather acid. Today, both wines no longer exist and neither do the vines.

I also encountered the tradition of viticulture by missionaries in China. At the oldest winery, we were proudly shown the ancestors of modern Chinese viticulture, Christian missionaries as winegrowers, founders of the "Dragon Seal" winery near Beijing.

Missionaries as winegrowers in China

In Namibia, Christian missionaries were the first white settlers. They were mainly messengers of the faith of the "London Missionary Society" and the "Rhenish Missionary Society", who endeavoured to save the souls of the indigenous blacks and set up farm-like stations in various places, later joining white farmers from Germany economically. But the climate was only suitable for growing wine in the north

Wine list at Canyon Roadhouse in Namibia

Vegetable gardens, wheat fields or even vines. The differences were too extreme: great drought and lack of rain for a long time, followed by a heavy rainy season. When Catholic missionaries came to the country a few years later, there was always a need - on a small scale - to plant vines and make wine.

We only have to think back a little further to find a similar development in Europe. Almost everywhere where monasteries were founded - especially the once stately Cistercian monasteries - wine was also grown (for example "Schulpforta"), wine was traded and a lot of wine was drunk in spite of the warning rule of the order.

Back to Namibia. On the shelves of the shopping centres and of course in the restaurants - especially those frequented by tourists - there is of course also wine, but exclusively from South Africa. European or even Californian wines can only be found in luxury hotels and in a few "wine shops".

Wine from South Africa% as it is sold in the roadhouses in Namibia for 7 Euros% with screw cap.

But South African wines are offered everywhere, white, red, even rosé. They are mostly simple wines from the big trading companies and huge South African wine farms. The opponents of cork register with satisfaction that among them are a surprisingly large number of bottles with screw caps Wine is not stored in Namibia (it is also much too hot), but mostly drunk very young.

In my search for Namibian wine, I discovered vines on a wine farm south of Windhoek, near Mariental. It is now a fancy farm guesthouse, but it spoils its guests with South African wines. Vines are still present, some in well-tended condition, but there is no in-house wine on the menu. Since large areas of Namibia still lack water for a long time, wine will probably remain more of an experiment and never become an economic factor. Like vegetables and lettuce, it continues to be imported - almost entirely - from the southern neighbouring country of South Africa.

It is usually too hot for heavy wines in Namibia anyway. Light white wines and rosés are in demand.

But "The Thonningii farm in the Otavi Valley, whose Shiraz - only 2'000 bottles are bottled annually - is worth every trip there," I read in one of the travel guides. Well, the Otavi Valley is not in our itinerary. A diversion there does not mean - as in old Europe - a diversion of a few kilometres; here in Namibia it is quickly a few hundred kilometres of driving on dusty and bumpy gravel roads. Whether I can convince my friends of the importance of Namibian viticulture or whether I want to make the unplanned journey at all remains to be decided, especially as our next stop is South Africa - and there are plenty of wineries there that are certainly worth a visit.

Sincerely

Yours/Yours

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