JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) – Soweto, South Africa’s most famous township, is staging its first ever wine festival over the weekend, challenging racial perceptions and aiming to popularise the drink in a society more traditionally associated with beer, organisers said Monday.

For the first time ever, South African township residents will have direct access to some of the finest vintages, including those produced by 12 black wine producers in South Africa, said organiser Thami Xaba. “We want to change perceptions that only whites drink wine and what better place than have it in Soweto,” Xaba told AFP at the announcement of the festival.

“There is a myth out there that there are no black wine drinkers, that wine is expensive and only for ‘the upper classes’. We want to challenge that perception,” said Xaba, a businessman involved in spearheading a tourism revival of the township, southwest of Johannesburg.

Soweto has a long and rich history of so-called “shebeens” or illegal drinking houses where black South Africans could relax, listen to music and drink beer and forget for a while about the misery of living under white oppression.

The drink of choice in Soweto has always been beer, either bought commercially or of the homebrewed variety. As upcoming black citizens start to prosper they “aspire to better things including the art of appreciating good wine”, said Xaba. “There is definitely a market out there,” he added.

Making wine, once the exclusive preserve of white men, many of them descendants of French Huguenots who arrived in the 17th century, has seen some radical changes in the last few years as more and more blacks are getting involved in the art.

“Wine has been my passion since I have been in high school,” said Jeannie Fletcher, a black wine producer who markets her wines under the name “Yamme’ Wines” (Tswana for “My mother’s Wines”), which produced its first Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot-Cabernet-Sauvignon vintages last year.

“It’s been incredibly tough to break into the wine market. But I am quite excited, we are at the crossroads and challenging the perceptions,” she said.

Wines by black producers available for tasting will include Cabernet, Pinotage, Merlot Shiraz, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and various blends, organisers said.

Showcasing among the black wine producers will be Lindiwe (Zulu for “the one who has been awaited”), Ses’fikile (Xhosa for “we have arrived”) and New Beginnings, South Africa’s first fully black-owned wine producer.