Simonsig, the wine estate that produces these bottles of wine, is named after the first Governor of Cape Town (then called the Cape of Good Hope), Simon van der Stel.
Van der Stel became Commander at the Cape in 1679, after which he was promoted to be the first Governor of the Cape in 1691. The interesting fact that I learned only today (and something that our apartheid history books conveniently ignored) was that while his father was Dutch, Simon's mother was Indian (in fact a freed slave woman), meaning that he and a large part of Cape Town's population have more in common that I'd previously realised. :)
mjw
That’s one hell of an info nugget they conveniently left out of standard 4 history. Shameful (I mean, that they did that). Can you imagine the difference it would have made to generations of kids growing up had they known that – kind of like the Obama effect?
Nixgrim
The link you’ve posted doesn’t work… 404. Can you post an alternative for us?
mjw
Oh no! That blogging site has closed down (today – and in a very rude fashion IMHO), taking the Slavery Heritage blog with it. It was a fantastic blog, often with content you couldn’t find elsewhere. I used to refer to it sometimes. I hope they will start it up somewhere else.
Celeste
Really cool picture, guys.
Paul
Post authorThanks guys for letting me know. I’ve emailed the website owner and asked them to submit the site to http://www.archive.org
In the meantime, you could check out a similar reference on Wikipedia, or check out Google’s cached copy of the page (although I’m not sure how long this link will last for).
Also, thanks Celest! :)