Wine without geography is not unthinkable but in 99 per cent of cases it is unexciting. Wine is one of the things we can buy for a few pounds or dollars whose label has long told us exactly which spot on the globe produced it. Just as excitingly, the precise character of that spot, its so-called terroir, really does shape how it tastes.

This is why, when I write tasting notes, I always include the appellation of the wine, the name of the officially registered and delimited district where the wine was grown and whose characteristics it should represent. Most wine-producing countries have families of these appellations, like Russian dolls nesting one inside the other, with the smallest appellations representing the most precise expressions of terroir fitting into larger and larger areas whose wines exhibit increasingly amorphous characters.

Wines labelled South Eastern Australia, for instance, can come from anywhere in the country apart from the 5 per cent of vineyards that lie in Western Australia. In practice, this means that they have been grown in the least-blessed vineyards. A wine labelled South Eastern Australia has much less individuality than, say, a wine labelled South Australia, which was produced specifically in that state, which will be less geographically specific than, say, a wine labelled with the name of the Barossa Valley in South Australia.

Similarly, any wine labelled simply California could have come from anywhere in the state and, in practice, is likely to be a blend of wines grown in the baking hot Central Valley, whose reputation is such that you would not choose to name it on a label. According to local wine regulations, if a wine producer wants to use a more specific appellation than, say, California or South Eastern Australia, then 85 per cent of the grapes must come from that particular appellation.

Now, let us consider South Africa. Unlike Australia and California, South African wine law requires that 100 per cent of the grapes must be grown in the specified appellation. The result is that, although there are more than 80 appellations in South African wine country, the great majority of South African wine exported carries one of two monikers that refer to areas so enormous as to be virtually meaningless to consumers. The most common by far is Western Cape, which encompasses all of the Cape winelands except the very hottest, most northerly vineyards (whose produce is rarely exported in any case). In effect, Western Cape on a wine label means “somewhere in South Africa”.

Cape favourites

AA Badenhorst, Red 2006 and Secateurs Chenin Blanc 2009 Swartland
Akkerdal , Kallie’s Dream 2005 Franschhoek
Alkmaar, The Old School 2005 Wellington
Bizoe, Henrietta Semillon/Sauvignon 2008 Franschhoek
Boekenhoutskloof, The Journeyman 2007 Franschhoek
Crystallum, Cuvée Cinema Pinot Noir 2008 Walker Bay
Neil Ellis, Vineyard Selection Grenache 2007 Piekenierskloof
Emineo, Liber I 2006 Durbanville
Haskell Vineyards, Pillars and Aeon Shiraz 2007 Stellenbosch
Mullineux, White Blend and Straw Wine 2008 Swartland
Raats Family, Cabernet Franc 2007 Stellenbosch
Sadie Family, Palladius 2007/2008 Swartland
Stark Condé, Three Pines Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Jonkershoek Valley
De Morgenzon , Chenin Blanc, 2007 Stellenbosch
Vondeling, Babiana White Blend 2006 Voor
Paarderberg
Waterkloof, Sauvignon Blanc 2008 Stellenbosch

For tasting notes on current South African wines, see purple pages of www.jancisrobinson.com

The second most common geographical name seen abroad on the labels of South Africa’s increasingly exciting wines is Coastal Region. This is another catch-all appellation, except that it is misleading and illogical. Some of the coolest, most maritime wine districts of all – for example, Walker Bay around the seaside resort of Hermanus, Cape Agulhas and Overberg – do not qualify as part of the Coastal Region (presumably because they emerged after the boundaries were drawn up). Meanwhile, hot, indisputably inland districts, such as Tulbagh and Swartland, come within the wide embrace of the region known as Coastal.

Until the breakdown of apartheid, South Africa’s wine industry was ruled with a rod of iron by a monopoly called the KWV, which prided itself on its draconian controls on wine production. It was particularly proud of this 100 per cent requirement, as it was of a raft of other measures notably more restrictive than in most other wine-producing countries. If a single grape in a blend is grown outside, say, Stellenbosch, the blend cannot be so named. And if a single grape is grown outside, say, the Coastal Region, then the only recourse for the producer is to label the wine Western Cape.

Since the whole labelling business is so strict in the Cape – and since the post-apartheid South African wine scene is so fluid that the ambitious new generation of winemakers is often tempted to buy in a little bit of this grape and a little bit of that – the tendency is for them to throw up their hands and simply label their wines with the largest available geographical unit so as to retain flexibility for the next vintage.

This means that those who buy South African wines outside South Africa, and probably many of them within South Africa, are not learning anything about the Cape’s wonderfully varied geography. This seems such a shame, not least because the generic organisation, Wines of South Africa (Wosa), so firmly set its sights some years ago on the country’s ecological credentials, with biodiversity playing a key part. On its website, Wosa makes much of South Africa’s “distinctive and varied topography, and diverse soils”.

One would have thought that geographical traceability would complement this message. Indeed, a few years back Wosa’s generic tasting in the UK, the prime export market for South African wine, broke new ground by arranging all exhibitors by their geographical origins. Such purity of purpose seems to have been lost.

Fortunately, however, the average quality of wine being exported from South Africa has progressed in leaps and bounds – even if too often we have to guess at exactly where the grapes were grown. Some of the more exciting wines, many of them newcomers and all with respectably specific origins, are listed in the box.

More columns at www.ft.com/robinson