Hmm, I’ve had like 6 bottles of South African wine ever, and without a doubt and by a monstrous margin, they are the 6 worst wines I ever consumed.
I remember the first one I was on a date with this smoking hot South African guy and he was SO proud to serve me some wine from his home country and it was so awful it was really REALLY hard to not be rude about it.
Especially since he knew that I loved wine.
I’d say it’s just me, but on every trip through South Africa there was always undrunk South African wine that no one in the group wanted to actually drink after excitedly ordering it, ready to literally drink in the culture of the land.
Maybe the bartender pastor leading the trips and the South African guy I dated were just uniquely awful at selecting specifically South African wine, but not other types of wine???
Or maybe the people I was with were better at selecting wines. 
Plenty of awful wines anywhere you go, I imagine. It’s pretty big business in SA though so somebody’s finding bottles they like.
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I went on a pretty high-end trip. Maybe we had the best of South African wine. But they did serve us a choice of wines every night with dinner, and none was remarkable, and all were completely pleasant to drink.
Or maybe there’s some feature or style of wines that’s popular in South Africa that you dislike. Who knows.
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Go drinkie drinkie.
South African chenin blanc has an excellent reputation but apparently very little of the good stuff makes it stateside (or so people in UK tell me). I haven’t been to South Africa though, so you do have that added insight.
I am intrigued by the job title ‘bartender pastor’ - I don’t think I’ve come across that in the Catholic Church (although all the priests were renowned drinkers).
I explained in an earlier post that he started off as a bartender and then decided to go to seminary and become a pastor.
I was being lazy when I referred to him later. He never had those two jobs simultaneously, although he was both a bartender and a youth minister for several years while he was putting himself through seminary. But two separate roles.
Might also vary by region. We were in Capetown/Stellenbosch which I think is known for their wines. Idk . I liked it. I’m not a big wine drinker though. I don’t know enough to choose them myself. But I’ll try anything twice. 
I do know that bartender <> sommelier
He picked out good wines everywhere else. And warned us that South African wine wasn’t very good. And at restaurants usually the wines on offer have been vetted by the staff there which usually includes if not an actual sommelier then someone fairly knowledgeable about wine.
I’m glad that y’all have had SA wines that you enjoyed. I haven’t, but possibly the 7th time will be the charm.
I agree with Lucy that it could be a stylistic issue. There may be a certain style that South African winemakers are going for, and it’s just something that you don’t care for in wine.
Stylistically, I often have trouble with Chilean Cabernet Sauvignons. They often have bell pepper flavors (pyrazines) which some people really like but I’m not a big fan of (something to do with their canopy management - the leaves cover the grapes so they get very little sun).
Hey, thanks for the warning! I despise bell-pepper flavors, but often drink Cabernet. I’ll be cautious.
I don’t mean to disparage all Chilean wines. Some of them can be excellent value. Every region will have particular tendencies, which is the beauty of trying wines from all over the world.
The Eucharist is a niche form of mixology.
Hmmm, I love Chilean cabs.