Assumpta Uwamariya makes wine out of beetroot and has become a sparkling role model for other Rwandan women. 



The beautiful hill country of Rwanda is typically not known for its wine industry, but is reputed for its innovative entrepreneurs. And 30-year-old Assumpta Uwamariya is one such, making red wine from an unconventional source – beetroot.



Based in Rubavu district in western Rwanda, Uwamariya started off farming different types of vegetables, and at first, decided on making juice out of beetroot.&nbsp;



August 2015 marked the beginning of what she describes as a “tough journey”. She had no working space of her own and could only produce 20 liters of juice.



The turning point came in 2016 when she was chosen the best young innovator at the YouthConnekt Africa Awards, bagging $5,000. That enabled her to hire labor, buy new equipment and acquire more knowledge through training.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="805" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-1024x805.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-44547" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-1024x805.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-scaled-300x236.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-scaled-600x472.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-768x604.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-1536x1207.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assoumpta-Uwamariya-arranging-bottles-of-wine-in-her-wine-shop-at-Mahoko-Centre-in-Rubavu-District-on-Thursday-January-19-2017.-Emmanuel-Ntirenganya-1-2048x1609.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



For a long time, she was making wine from beetroot but later, expanded production to also make wine from fruits such as pineapple and banana. Beetroot wine remains her principal product with the highest demand.



But it was a journey filled with impediments.



&nbsp; “For many, it was too good to be real and their assumption was that I imported [wine] from other countries and just packaged it,” she says.



Even more discouraging to her were comments that a woman had no place in the wine business.



“Money knows no gender. Is it profitable, am I passionate?” That is all that matters, she says.



“I was subjected to mockery from people who consider agriculture an area of the backward and the primitive.”



That didn’t dampen her spirit as she had already had a taste of the industry and knew how profitable it was. She says more young people should be encouraged into the sector.



&nbsp;“We recently went for a field trip to Kenya where a group of 80 young people traveled to visit industries with the government footing the bill.”



Uwamariya sees agriculture as the cornerstone of Rwanda’s economy.



“When you try agriculture, there’s no turning back. I also never thought I would stay in it this long but now I’m proud and determined.”



Her brand, Karisimbi Wines, is also available in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uwamariya’s aspiration is to expand the reach of her products across the globe in the next five years.



Prior to wine-making, she had tried her hand at various businesses. Today, she produces 300 liters of wine every week and has bigger ambitions.



The entrepreneur takes pride in having made money at a young age but her greatest satisfaction lies in showing others what young women are capable of.



“I believe that men and women are equally able and I think it’s high time people started to see that women can be broad-minded, self-reliant and visionary just like our male colleagues,” asserts Uwamariya.



&nbsp;The positive feedback from her consumers motivates and keeps her going in the face of challenges.



When asked what she would have done differently if she could turn the clock back, Uwamariya says she would have entered the agricultural sector even sooner than she did.



But she has invested her time well.



&#8211;Steven Muvunyi

Assumpta Uwamariya showing a beetroot ( in her right hand) at Mahoko Centre in Rubavu District, on January 20, 2017 (Emmanuel Ntirenganya)

Red Riches: This Entrepreneur Makes Wine From An Unconventional Source – Beetroot

Prudence Ukkonika’s wine shop is by a dusty petrol station in Wandegeya in Kampala.
A giant wine bottle is positioned outside her shop, and inside is a profusion of pink – pink wine bottles and cases from floor to ceiling, and finally Ukkonika herself, who climbs down the stairs from her upstairs office, in a pink dress.
She is Uganda’s most famous female wine entrepreneur. The 61-year-old grandmother of 10 is the owner of K-Roma, a company that manufactures, packages and distributes Bella Wine and a range of natural fruit concentrates, ready-to-drink juices and teas.
As a teenager, Ukkonika would watch her father trade local brew in Kigezi, a district in southwest Uganda. That stoked her interest, and with several public administration and business administration degrees under her belt later on in life, she started the wine business.
Her unique selling proposition for Bella, which derives its name from the acronym ‘Belief Leads to Long-lasting Achievement’, is that her wines and juices are sourced from organic and natural fruits, free from chemicals and other additives.
Besides the sweet reds, her best-sellers, she says, are hibiscus wine and a range of hibiscus teas, especially conducive for those with diabetes and high blood pressure.
“I refuse blood pressure tablets. I take hibiscus tea and wine and I am okay,” she says.
The real inspiration for the wine business was her late son Godwin. He was in his 20s when he saw a future in wine.
“He saw people enjoying local wine more, so he took an interest in it, and like me, he was an entrepreneur, selling wine after school,” says Ukkonika.
When tragedy struck and Godwin passed away, she says she wanted to run away from Uganda, but stayed.
“He was so close to me, and he inspired me to continue the business,” she says.
By 2013, she took courses in wine-making and started marketing the wines in a big way.
For the last 37 years, Ukkonika has also worked at the Ministry of Finance. So she has had a fully-fledged career.
“They supported me the most, as I was running the wine business and also selling to staff.”
She was producing the wines in her garage at home. With business growing, she then rented a place in Muyenga, using 200-liter drums to store the wines.
Today, she sells the wines – an average of 200 bottles a day – to retail supermarkets across Uganda, and they are also popular across the borders in Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya.
Her company makes seven different types of wines, among them those made of passion fruit, tree tomato, and a combination of pineapple and hibiscus that she calls ‘special wine’.
The variously-colored labels on her bottles are from China.
“There are many people trying to copy our products and put on fake labels, so I had to go to China to get special shiny labels,” says Ukkonika.
These labels can also be customized. In her shop, an entire rack is devoted to wines personalized for prenuptial events, weddings and graduation ceremonies. These include images of happy couples on their wedding day plastered onto the bottles.
Ukkonika regularly attends wine expos around the world, and has plans to expand her business as she already has a factory.
Pointing to the wall adorned with the numerous certificates and awards she has won over the years, Ukkonika says: “I started with nothing; and reached where I did.”
She attained all her business degrees after age 31 and “giving birth to six children in seven years”.
Today, her weeks are busy but the weekends are filled with family and lots of Bella Wine.
“Everybody else’s wine is from grapes, but I make it from all fruits. I never look at competition but work on how to make my wine better,” says Ukkonika, who, like the wine she sells, seems to keep getting better with age.

Something To Wine About

I am inordinately held up in Manhattan’s unpredictable traffic even as Bisila Bokoko waits endlessly for me at the Les Ambassades patisserie in Harlem. She has promised to show me around the African-American neighborhood with its vibrant alfresco cafes, arty hotspots and cultural hubs.
She is about to finish her third cappuccino and a plate of Senegalese rice when I show up, hoping she hasn’t left. But despite the two-hour wait, she’s a picture of calm.
We soon walk the streets to Apollo Theater, the legendary Harlem performance hall, ending our May evening jaunt at Red Rooster, the restaurant run by Ethiopian celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, another famous African export. The place is packed for a week night and there are many regulars by the stylish smoke-filled bar who wave to Bokoko.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/11/07/the-right-connections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Right Connections</a>
All along, we have been chatting about Africa, a continent she visits more than three times a year. Her kohl-lined eyes light up every time she mentions her umbilical cord connection to the land of her dreams.
Bokoko is many things at the same time – businesswoman, motivation speaker and TV personality – but she is also a wine entrepreneur, and very much like the boutique wines she sells – “wines with an African accent made in Spain”.
Born in the port city of Valencia in Spain to parents from Equatorial Guinea, Bokoko lives in New York – in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan – but straddles continents, sometimes doing as many as six flights a week. She calls herself “a cultural hybrid”.
“I live out of a suitcase, but you really live within yourself. The suitcase is irrelevant, I am happy and home wherever I am,” says Bokoko. The secret, she says, is devoting the first four hours of the day to her body, mind and soul.
“I am at the gym at five every morning. I pray, meditate, exercise and organize my day. It’s always about efficiency and focus.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/11/06/highly-adaptable-totally-indestructible/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Highly Adaptable And Totally Indestructible</a>
Work often takes her to Valencia. Her wine business has been profitable and she recently invested in a 19th century building, “like a castle”, in Spain for her winery. Currently, she sells 12 different categories of wine and 40,000 bottles a year in Spain, China, Latin America and some parts of West Africa.
Besides her eponymous wines, she is also founder of the Bisila Bokoko African Literacy Project, bringing books and libraries to children in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe. She is soon opening a library in Senegal, and South Africa is also on the cards for 2018.
“Most of the African stories are being lost. I was born in Spain by accident – my parents were there only because of the political situation in Equatorial Guinea. That is why I am so passionate about the libraries project. I was always experiencing Africa through books. Before I went to Africa with my body, I traveled with my mind. That’s why I want to gift that to the children there,” says the 43-year-old and mother of two.
The first time Bokoko stepped foot in Africa, was when she visited Ghana, the day she turned 35, as “a birthday gift” to herself. Her tryst with Africa was about to begin. It became her mission to change the image of Africa abroad.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/11/03/sheas-a-force/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Shea&#8217;s A Force</a>
She had moved to New York from Spain at the age of 24, whilst doing an internship for the government of Valencia in international trade. She went on to complete an MA in International Relations in New York, while at the same time helping companies in Valencia do business in the US.
As the Executive Director of the Spain-US Chamber Of Commerce for seven years, she worked closely with leading Spanish brands such as ZARA and Mango.
Bokoko’s lawyer-father still lives in Equatorial Guinea. Her greatest blessing, she says, are her brothers. One of them is an ex-banker living in Panama; she also has a brother who runs his own consultancy firm in China.
Bokoko travels the world for speaking engagements and also owns Bisila Bokoko Embassy Services International, a boutique consultancy firm in New York.
“My biggest fear was to be an entrepreneur. I was in a comfort zone, with a paycheck and an institution to fall back on. But now, I work for Bisila Bokoko, I am my own boss,” she says.

‘A Cultural Hybrid’

In Franschhoek, a village near South Africa’s Western Cape with 17th-century charm and postcard views of the Drakenstein Mountains, is L’Ormarins, a 3,200-acre estate belonging to Johann Rupert; it’s the largest part of Anthonij Rupert Wyne, the South African billionaire’s wine empire. Driving past a Rodin sculpture in the garden and equally statuesque stallions on the lawns, he arrives at the property early one February morning in a jovial mood, the harvest season under way. His comfortably appointed study is in one of the property’s newer buildings, its red wine cellar designed to resemble the inner workings of a watch (an appropriate metaphor for Rupert, who built his fortune as chairman of Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods and jewelry company with such brands as Cartier, Van Cleef &amp; Arpels and Piaget).
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4925" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO041916_076-150x300.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="300" />
The 65-year-old Rupert belongs to that substratum of the stratospherically wealthy for whom silence is considered platinum. He rarely gives interviews but is undeniably garrulous when the conversation is about wine. Visible through the study’s windows are rows of Chenin Blanc, a popular varietal in South Africa that rivals the Loire Valley’s.
“Chenin Blanc is a wine that, if properly handled, is a really nice drinking wine,” says Rupert, deeply tanned and smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes. With a net worth of nearly $6 billion, he has never underestimated the value of a good customer. “I look at people, and I would say there are sippers and there are drinkers. People who stir a salad around and sip a bit of Sauvignon Blanc are probably the same people who in the past would drink spritzers. They’re not wine drinkers, and I’m not in that business. I want people who love wine.”
In leading both Richemont and his winemaker, Rupert innately understands the competition to capture discerning customers. Many wealthy men have been known to buy wineries as markers of success, much in the way they purchase sports teams or movie studios. What the trophy-vineyard set lacks and Rupert possesses is an intimate connection to his grapes: Winemaking is far more than an expensive hobby – it’s deeply personal. The original owner of Anthonij Rupert Wyne was his younger brother, Anthonij, who, in 2001, at age 50, died in a car crash. “He was my best friend,” says Rupert, “and I wanted to finish his dream.”
Eager to bring his brother’s vision to its full fruition, Rupert has substantially expanded the winemaking operations, adding hundreds of acres of vineyards farther north and to the west – and next door, too, after purchasing land from Graham Beck, whose sparkling wine was reportedly used at both Nelson Mandela’s and Barack Obama’s inaugurations. Visitors to L’Ormarins and other nearby wineries typically stay in one of the country hotels in Franschhoek; the luxe La Residence, starting at $530 a night, is the best of the bunch. Close to L’Ormarins, in neighboring Stellenbosch, is diamond billionaire Laurence Graff’s winery, the Delaire Graff Estate, which has ten lavish lodges, beginning at $800 a night. Nearby Babylonstoren, owned by billionaire Koos Bekker, costs a lot less (starting at $250) but is sumptuous, too.
To reach a broad international clientele, Rupert has insisted on exporting his goods in climate-controlled containers, a change from the usual shipping method a slow boat through varied temperatures that can alter a wine’s character. And among his winery’s new offerings is a line called Terra Del Capo, made from Italian vines, a tribute to Anthonij’s fondness for that country’s wines. More personally, he learned to accept that winemaking would never have the same level of predictability as, say, his watch business. “Once we’ve done our jobs properly,” he says of Richemont, “then we don’t have to worry about a drought, hail or some bug I’ve never heard of in my life. If you have any overconfidence, the wine industry will take that out of you quickly.” His estate’s greatest success fittingly carries his brother’s name: the Anthonij Rupert 2007, a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. (It’s also priced like a Bordeaux, at $100-plus.) The vintage scored a 95-point rating from the industry bible, Wine Spectator, in 2012 only the fifth South African wine to do so and is, naturally, hard to find these days.
A surprise hit was a 2005 Petit Verdot originally produced as part of a blend (in keeping with Bordeaux custom). In its early stages it was powerfully tannic, but once left to age it improved immensely. Rupert’s staff decided to bottle and sell it as a stand-alone wine but didn’t consult with their boss. He wasn’t disappointed.
“People went crazy for it,” he says. “True wine lovers discovered it.” A French acquaintance tried a bottle and took a case to France to share among friends in the industry. “They said, ‘It’s not possible!’ They couldn’t believe it. Guess what? We’re starting to make it again this year, and we’re going to plant some more.”
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4924" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO041916_075-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Rupert also enjoys a prosperous partnership with Baron Benjamin de Rothschild originally forged by Anthonij; Rupert &amp; Rothschild wines include the highly rated Baroness Nadine Chardonnay. As for the billing on the bottle, Rupert recalls the baron saying simply that it “sounds better than Rothschild &amp; Rupert.” What you won’t find Rupert making much of is Pinotage, South Africa’s signature variety, first developed about a century ago. To many winemakers the cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut (also known as Hermitage) is an unpalatable, barnyard-evoking wine. “I just don’t have an affinity for Pinotage,” he says. “I’ve said to my colleagues, ‘We’ve got to make wine that I like, because if I can’t sell it at least I can drink it.’”

Putting The Boer  Into Bordeaux

Alonely dirt road leads to a rustic farmhouse with old-fashioned shutters, wooden beams and creeping vines. By the entrance are a few ageing oak barrels, still sturdy and red from years of storing wine.
It is a fitting prelude to the man you are about to meet.
We are at Vriesenhof, a farm nestled between the Stellenbosch and Helderberg mountains in the Paradyskloof Valley of South Africa’s Western Cape. These winelands are rife with grapes and gossip, and boast a colorful cast of characters, mostly wine farmers who relate the valley’s stories, and often are stories themselves.
This is a world where wine and winning are spoken of in the same breath.
And in this cavernous house, a remodeled 18th century cellar, Jan Boland Coetzee, the renowned Springbok rugby player and venerable vintner, exemplifies both.
Within seconds of meeting him on this impromptu visit, Coetzee shows he is a true son of the soil. It is a warm April. Barefoot and brisk, in beige shorts, he darts from the living room, to the kitchen, to the backyard – where his elder daughter Hanle, who lives close by, is earnestly laying out tables for an evening do at the house.
In the kitchen – shelves laden with wine bottles – there are sizzling sounds on the stove, followed by the aroma of – possibly – deep-fried fish cakes. Coetzee is issuing instructions to a few laborers at the back. He soon returns to sit at the large yellowwood dining table, decked with flowers in vases set like a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Originally Dutch, Coetzee says his ancestors came to the Cape in 1679. It is here, in this valley at the foot of the Stellenbosch mountains, that he learned the game of rugby and the art of making wine.
Coetzee purchased Vriesenhof in 1980 – “for its south-facing slopes on the cooler side of the foothills” – and has been here since, cultivating plantings of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, pinotage and pinot noir, sold under the labels of Vriesenhof and Paradyskloof.
“I love to take pride in what is ours, what is South African,” says the valley’s doyen of pinotage.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4031" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Teddy-Leung-Shutterstock.com-002-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“I focused on pinotage when I was young, as it is the only grape variety since its birth that has really taken on a commercial collective in the world of wine. And if it is doing well, it means we are proud of it, because it is born under the African sun, it is performing under the African sun, and we take pride because we believe it is ours.”
Coetzee pauses between words and sentences, but when he speaks, he makes you feel the earth around you: the air, the sun, the soil. Clearly, it is his territory – and terroir.
“Wine is a mirror of the environment first and foremost, because it is a product of the soil. In that, lies our future. Man needs to understand the soil, the plant, to put it in its right place in the right environment to give it its best. And the more you care, the better it gets,” he says.
The man has a deep love for the farm, and is happy just to be in it – with his glass of chardonnay.
“I love what I am doing, I love the farm, and I love drinking good wine. It’s as simple as that,” says the sprightly 70-year-old whose days on the 85-hectare farm begin at 4AM.
Coetzee studied oenology and viticulture at Stellenbosch University.
“I didn’t become a vet so I became a viticulturist. It’s amazing how many winemakers wanted to become vets,”
he laughs.
“I still have the record for writing the most exams before I passed. So I have a very broad knowledge. Like the wooden barrel, it’s [like] the un-opening of old wine.”
While still a student, Coetzee became captain of the university’s Under-18 rugby team.
“Everyone in South Africa plays rugby from a young age,” he says.
He played for his provincial team, Western Province, from 1967 to 1979, and played flank for the national team, the Springboks, from 1974 to 1976.
He stopped playing when a tour was cancelled in 1979 on account of apartheid when South African sport also took a hit.
“From a South Africa point of view, things were bad in terms of international rugby because of apartheid. We were isolated… When the tour was cancelled, I stopped playing and went to France in 1981 to work in a wine house in Burgundy for a year,” says Coetzee.
That was the tipping point. He returned wiser, and helped lift the profile of wine in Stellenbosch. Today, he sells his wine all over the world; Scandinavia is his biggest market.
Coetzee may have stopped playing rugby, but he uses it well in his wine analogies.
“We used to export 74 percent of our crop, but now try and get as close as possible. We do 50:50 local and export. Rugby has taught me to have two legs. If you kick [with] one leg, one can hopefully stand on the other,” he says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4030" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Fingerhut-Shutterstock.com_-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Coetzee vividly remembers that tear-jerking moment when Nelson Mandela handed the trophy to Springbok captain François Pienaar during the 1995 World Cup final. Coetzee was present, as a spectator.
“It was a special day, not only for sport but also for mankind. I remember that moment clearly. I can still see it.”
Coetzee has ensured his legacy – in both rugby and wine – lives on.
“My grandsons [between the ages of five to 10] all play rugby. They also made their first wine in 2015. Each of them has a barrel from the vintage of the year they were born in,” says Coetzee.
Divorced, Coetzee lives by himself. Fortunately, his four children are all into farming in some way, and visit frequently. His daughter Hanle says the most remarkable thing about her father is his humility.
“He has 40 years plus of experience of harvests and climates in the wine industry. He has seen good vintages, and bad. The new, younger winemakers are well-traveled, whereas in his time, the exposure and material were limited. He has old-world knowledge. If he drops dead tomorrow, it’s all gone, I don’t know how to capture it,” she says.
How much is he worth? Coetzee thinks long and hard, before answering: “I actually can’t put a number to it; we are not [into] numbers. We want to be loving and caring people, and that you can’t measure in currency. Money is an evil necessity. I am a big believer of the barter system – milk farmers and cheese farmers must drink wine, and I must eat cheese. They must produce meat, and they must drink wine. I try to convince all my farming colleagues in the mutton, beef, cheese, fish and lobster businesses to [barter].”
And are they listening? For sure, he says with certainty.
Coetzee has many admirers in the valley, across generations. About three kilometers from his Vriesenhof farmhouse, at the Kleine Zalze estate, its owner Kobus Basson, another Stellenbosch success, says Coetzee was instrumental in exposing him to the lifestyle around the wine business. He turned the rugby-playing lawyer into one of the region’s top wine farmers.
“Jan Coetzee is one of the characters of Stellenbosch, you can’t tell a wine story without him,” says the 57-year-old Basson of the senior entrepreneur.
“He is the type of guy [who] if there is snow in the mountains, would still walk in his short pants, with muscles like he has. He is a Stellenbosch legend, one of the five wine personalities that built this industry.”
Basson’s father was a figurehead in the local rugby club and that was his first connection with Coetzee. Plus, Basson’s initial 10-year legal practice ensured he interacted with most of the wine farmers.
“When you work with them, it’s like a friendship. Jan was the guy who spent a lot of time in France, and knew all the wine areas well. In 1996, I went with him and a few other prominent guys – while I was still a legal guy – on a trip to Argentina, and that gave me a completely different perspective of the industry. They were much ahead of us.”
Basson says South Africa’s wine industry matured only in the last 20 years. After he finished his law degree at Stellenbosch University, Basson took a year off to go to central Europe to be a rugby coach.
“I went there to play and coach and work on relationships, in what they called the European B-League rugby countries. It actually exposed me to other things – to wine, food and the lifestyle around it… I understood how the Germans, Dutch and French work in a different way with wine… I immediately got this idea about lifestyle and food and wine combinations.”
Returning to Stellenbosch, he practiced as a lawyer, and got into the wine business more by default than design.
“My wife came from a wine family, and told me she wanted to live on a farm. I said ‘forget it, I am not farming’. Eventually, in 1996, her brother was running the family farm, and was looking for an opportunity with a winery, and I told him about Kleine Zalze [that I had heard] was on the market. He asked me for money to pay the deposit, and that’s how I got involved. He said ‘in the meantime, you can have 50 percent share of it’, and before I realized, I was sucked into it, because this is a business that sucks in money, in terms of capital investment.”
They bought the 40-hectare farm and after the first harvest, signed up with importers from Britain, who had high expectations.
“I thought, ‘either you do it properly or bail out’. In retrospect, I can see how the year in Germany helped, how my friendship with Jan Coetzee formed me,” says Basson.
During the nineties in South Africa, golf and wine tourism was just starting, so he thought: “Why do we go to Tuscany and Provence, when we actually have everything here? Why can’t we create it here?”
It was hard work. Every day, for a decade, Basson woke up at 3AM.
“I had no choice. It was crazy and difficult years, the interest rates went up between 1998 and 2002. I had to invest my shares and everything I had. Cash flow was the challenge during those years; we had to slowly and steadily build this up.”
Today, Kleine Zalze is 280 hectares, including the wine estate, an 18-hole golf course, a 47-bedroom lodge and the award-winning Terroir restaurant with chef Michael Broughton. Basson says all the businesses are doing very well.
“We are doing well in terms of exports [too]; I would say we do more than 200,000 cases of Kleine Zalze wines a year. And we have won several awards,” he says.
Chenin blanc is the brand’s specialty.
The last season for wine tourism in Stellenbosch was wonderful, adds Basson, who is also a director of the Stellenbosch Wine Route.
“If we stay calm and focused, it’s a very exciting period ahead… We have done research and the interesting thing is they compared different regions, and Stellenbosch has by far the highest visitor return rate. We have guys who have come to Stellenbosch 18 years in a row. You won’t find [a place] more beautiful. You have no idea how sexy Stellenbosch is.”
And like any good sportsman, he says his greatest asset is his team.
“You need strong players in your team… [The wine industry] is a little bit like top-end sport. It’s so competitive, if you don’t play with your best team, you are not going to win.”
What is it they say about wine and winning in the valley? It’s the same thing. And Coetzee agrees.

Electrifying

Alonely dirt road leads to a rustic farmhouse with old-fashioned shutters, wooden beams and creeping vines. By the entrance are a few ageing oak barrels, still sturdy and red from years of storing wine.
It is a fitting prelude to the man you are about to meet.
We are at Vriesenhof, a farm nestled between the Stellenbosch and Helderberg mountains in the Paradyskloof Valley of South Africa’s Western Cape. These winelands are rife with grapes and gossip, and boast a colorful cast of characters, mostly wine farmers who relate the valley’s stories, and often are stories themselves.
This is a world where wine and winning are spoken of in the same breath.
And in this cavernous house, a remodeled 18th century cellar, Jan Boland Coetzee, the renowned Springbok rugby player and venerable vintner, exemplifies both.
Within seconds of meeting him on this impromptu visit, Coetzee shows he is a true son of the soil. It is a warm April. Barefoot and brisk, in beige shorts, he darts from the living room, to the kitchen, to the backyard – where his elder daughter Hanle, who lives close by, is earnestly laying out tables for an evening do at the house.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4024" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/KZ-Lodge-rim-flow-Pool-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" />
In the kitchen – shelves laden with wine bottles – there are sizzling sounds on the stove, followed by the aroma of – possibly – deep-fried fish cakes. Coetzee is issuing instructions to a few laborers at the back. He soon returns to sit at the large yellowwood dining table, decked with flowers in vases set like a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Originally Dutch, Coetzee says his ancestors came to the Cape in 1679. It is here, in this valley at the foot of the Stellenbosch mountains, that he learned the game of rugby and the art of making wine.
Coetzee purchased Vriesenhof in 1980 – “for its south-facing slopes on the cooler side of the foothills” – and has been here since, cultivating plantings of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, pinotage and pinot noir, sold under the labels of Vriesenhof and Paradyskloof.
“I love to take pride in what is ours, what is South African,” says the valley’s doyen of pinotage.
“I focused on pinotage when I was young, as it is the only grape variety since its birth that has really taken on a commercial collective in the world of wine. And if it is doing well, it means we are proud of it, because it is born under the African sun, it is performing under the African sun, and we take pride because we believe it is ours.”
Coetzee pauses between words and sentences, but when he speaks, he makes you feel the earth around you: the air, the sun, the soil. Clearly, it is his territory – and terroir.
“Wine is a mirror of the environment first and foremost, because it is a product of the soil. In that, lies our future. Man needs to understand the soil, the plant, to put it in its right place in the right environment to give it its best. And the more you care, the better it gets,” he says.
The man has a deep love for the farm, and is happy just to be in it – with his glass of chardonnay.
“I love what I am doing, I love the farm, and I love drinking good wine. It’s as simple as that,” says the sprightly 70-year-old whose days on the 85-hectare farm begin at 4AM.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4025" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/unnamed-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Coetzee studied oenology and viticulture at Stellenbosch University.
“I didn’t become a vet so I became a viticulturist. It’s amazing how many winemakers wanted to become vets,”
he laughs.
“I still have the record for writing the most exams before I passed. So I have a very broad knowledge. Like the wooden barrel, it’s [like] the un-opening of old wine.”
While still a student, Coetzee became captain of the university’s Under-18 rugby team.
“Everyone in South Africa plays rugby from a young age,” he says.
He played for his provincial team, Western Province, from 1967 to 1979, and played flank for the national team, the Springboks, from 1974 to 1976.
He stopped playing when a tour was cancelled in 1979 on account of apartheid when South African sport also took a hit.
“From a South Africa point of view, things were bad in terms of international rugby because of apartheid. We were isolated… When the tour was cancelled, I stopped playing and went to France in 1981 to work in a wine house in Burgundy for a year,” says Coetzee.
That was the tipping point. He returned wiser, and helped lift the profile of wine in Stellenbosch. Today, he sells his wine all over the world; Scandinavia is his biggest market.
Coetzee may have stopped playing rugby, but he uses it well in his wine analogies.
“We used to export 74 percent of our crop, but now try and get as close as possible. We do 50:50 local and export. Rugby has taught me to have two legs. If you kick [with] one leg, one can hopefully stand on the other,” he says.
Coetzee vividly remembers that tear-jerking moment when Nelson Mandela handed the trophy to Springbok captain François Pienaar during the 1995 World Cup final. Coetzee was present, as a spectator.
“It was a special day, not only for sport but also for mankind. I remember that moment clearly. I can still see it.”
Coetzee has ensured his legacy – in both rugby and wine – lives on.
“My grandsons [between the ages of five to 10] all play rugby. They also made their first wine in 2015. Each of them has a barrel from the vintage of the year they were born in,” says Coetzee.
Divorced, Coetzee lives by himself. Fortunately, his four children are all into farming in some way, and visit frequently. His daughter Hanle says the most remarkable thing about her father is his humility.
“He has 40 years plus of experience of harvests and climates in the wine industry. He has seen good vintages, and bad. The new, younger winemakers are well-traveled, whereas in his time, the exposure and material were limited. He has old-world knowledge. If he drops dead tomorrow, it’s all gone, I don’t know how to capture it,” she says.
How much is he worth? Coetzee thinks long and hard, before answering: “I actually can’t put a number to it; we are not [into] numbers. We want to be loving and caring people, and that you can’t measure in currency. Money is an evil necessity. I am a big believer of the barter system – milk farmers and cheese farmers must drink wine, and I must eat cheese. They must produce meat, and they must drink wine. I try to convince all my farming colleagues in the mutton, beef, cheese, fish and lobster businesses to [barter].”
And are they listening? For sure, he says with certainty.
Coetzee has many admirers in the valley, across generations. About three kilometers from his Vriesenhof farmhouse, at the Kleine Zalze estate, its owner Kobus Basson, another Stellenbosch success, says Coetzee was instrumental in exposing him to the lifestyle around the wine business. He turned the rugby-playing lawyer into one of the region’s top wine farmers.
“Jan Coetzee is one of the characters of Stellenbosch, you can’t tell a wine story without him,” says the 57-year-old Basson of the senior entrepreneur.
“He is the type of guy [who] if there is snow in the mountains, would still walk in his short pants, with muscles like he has. He is a Stellenbosch legend, one of the five wine personalities that built this industry.”
Basson’s father was a figurehead in the local rugby club and that was his first connection with Coetzee. Plus, Basson’s initial 10-year legal practice ensured he interacted with most of the wine farmers.
“When you work with them, it’s like a friendship. Jan was the guy who spent a lot of time in France, and knew all the wine areas well. In 1996, I went with him and a few other prominent guys – while I was still a legal guy – on a trip to Argentina, and that gave me a completely different perspective of the industry. They were much ahead of us.”
Basson says South Africa’s wine industry matured only in the last 20 years. After he finished his law degree at Stellenbosch University, Basson took a year off to go to central Europe to be a rugby coach.
“I went there to play and coach and work on relationships, in what they called the European B-League rugby countries. It actually exposed me to other things – to wine, food and the lifestyle around it… I understood how the Germans, Dutch and French work in a different way with wine… I immediately got this idea about lifestyle and food and wine combinations.”
Returning to Stellenbosch, he practiced as a lawyer, and got into the wine business more by default than design.
“My wife came from a wine family, and told me she wanted to live on a farm. I said ‘forget it, I am not farming’. Eventually, in 1996, her brother was running the family farm, and was looking for an opportunity with a winery, and I told him about Kleine Zalze [that I had heard] was on the market. He asked me for money to pay the deposit, and that’s how I got involved. He said ‘in the meantime, you can have 50 percent share of it’, and before I realized, I was sucked into it, because this is a business that sucks in money, in terms of capital investment.”
They bought the 40-hectare farm and after the first harvest, signed up with importers from Britain, who had high expectations.
“I thought, ‘either you do it properly or bail out’. In retrospect, I can see how the year in Germany helped, how my friendship with Jan Coetzee formed me,” says Basson.
During the nineties in South Africa, golf and wine tourism was just starting, so he thought: “Why do we go to Tuscany and Provence, when we actually have everything here? Why can’t we create it here?”
It was hard work. Every day, for a decade, Basson woke up at 3AM.
“I had no choice. It was crazy and difficult years, the interest rates went up between 1998 and 2002. I had to invest my shares and everything I had. Cash flow was the challenge during those years; we had to slowly and steadily build this up.”
Today, Kleine Zalze is 280 hectares, including the wine estate, an 18-hole golf course, a 47-bedroom lodge and the award-winning Terroir restaurant with chef Michael Broughton. Basson says all the businesses are doing very well.
“We are doing well in terms of exports [too]; I would say we do more than 200,000 cases of Kleine Zalze wines a year. And we have won several awards,” he says.
Chenin blanc is the brand’s specialty.
The last season for wine tourism in Stellenbosch was wonderful, adds Basson, who is also a director of the Stellenbosch Wine Route.
“If we stay calm and focused, it’s a very exciting period ahead… We have done research and the interesting thing is they compared different regions, and Stellenbosch has by far the highest visitor return rate. We have guys who have come to Stellenbosch 18 years in a row. You won’t find [a place] more beautiful. You have no idea how sexy Stellenbosch is.”
And like any good sportsman, he says his greatest asset is his team.
“You need strong players in your team… [The wine industry] is a little bit like top-end sport. It’s so competitive, if you don’t play with your best team, you are not going to win.”
What is it they say about wine and winning in the valley? It’s the same thing. And Coetzee agrees.

Long Days Of  Sun, Rugby And Wine

It’s the finer things in life, like Durban summers and neo soul, that bring a smile to Vusi Kunene’s face, but nothing brings him as much joy as sushi and a good bottle of white wine. But life hasn’t always been a breeze for the 30-year-old entrepreneur.
Kunene grew up in the small town of Topfontein, in the province of Mpumalanga, but always wanted more from life. At the age of 15, he dropped out of high school and set his sights on making it big in Johannesburg.
But life in the City of Gold was tough.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3210" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/shutterstock_100783525-300x197.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="197" />
“I started doing all these odd jobs. I used to be a car guard, I’ve done construction and I’ve taken pictures at some stage in my life,” he says.
But it was working as a waiter in the hospitality industry that introduced him to the mouth-watering opportunities of food. Six years of eyeing the cooking process from afar, Kunene decided to put on the white hat and try his hand as a chef. He had ambitions to travel around the world and learn how to prepare different cuisines. It was, however, in Cape Town where he fell in love with sushi.
“If you look at the chefs behind the counter, you’ll see they are very passionate. The communication between the chef, his knife and whatever he’s doing is amazing. For them it’s not even work, it’s a lifestyle,” says Kunene.
His biggest challenge was the language barrier between him and the Japanese and Chinese chefs. So he learned everything he could about the process, history and culture through books.
After two years in Cape Town, Kunene moved back to Johannesburg where he began to work on his dream of opening his own sushi bar.
“Being a black man and saying you’re going to do sushi, people look at it and think it’s impossible. But what they were missing was [the vision to see] the opportunity in
the market.”
Kunene started small: two cutting boards, two knives and around $360. He called it The Mobile Sushi Bar.
“This showed me that an idea can be put into action with the minimum capital that you have, you don’t need a lot of money and a big sponsor,” he says.
Business quickly picked up and The Mobile Sushi Bar was making money from markets, home functions, corporate functions and food festivals.
While catering at The Africa Bike Week event, Kunene had a conversation with a customer that sparked the new name for
the business.
“Jokingly, he asked ‘which part of Japan are you from?’ and I said ‘No, we’re not the Japanese, we’re the Blackanese.’”
The name became a running joke throughout the event. It was edgy, fresh and perfectly represented the company.
Kunene decided it was time to open a sushi restaurant and the only certainty was that it would be called The Blackanese.
He found the perfect spot in the middle of the Maboneng Precinct – an urban neighborhood in downtown Johannesburg surrounded by art galleries, shops and studios.
The Blackanese opened their doors in April 2013. The first month drew in large crowds and it was clear that they were the popular new kids on the block. Kunene’s face was appearing on television shows, magazines and adverts.
But the honeymoon phase was short lived.
“Two months in and business just went dead… We were lucky to have two clients in a week.”
Uncertain of the future, Kunene fought on. He had seen too many businesses shut down during hard times, but he believed that things would soon turn around. They did.
A few months later, The Blackanese was soon back on its feet and doing better than ever. In June, the restaurant began renovations and reopened their doors in September.
Kunene sees big plans for the future of The Blackanese, including opening up a pop-up store in Japan.
Whenever inspiration is lacking and Kunene needs a little pat on the shoulder, he never has to go far. He literally walks a few steps to his apartment building, where he lives on the top floor. The view from his window says it all. Spray-painted on the face-bricked building across from him, in bold black words, it reads ‘I Love Your Work’. Surely a message from the universe.

Uncooked Fish  And Raw Ambition

When Vivian Kleynhans grew up in the remote fishing village of Paternoster on South Africa’s West Coast, not in her wildest dreams did she think that one day she would sign a major export deal with the world’s largest discounter, Walmart.
Last year, that happened.
Kleynhans, 49, shipped four 40-foot containers of her Seven Sisters wines to the United States (US), where Walmart has been selling them in more than 500 stores countrywide since September.
“We are hoping to ship this amount every three months from now on, if sales go well,” says Kleynhans.
Although she’s not allowed to disclose the size of the contract, Kleynhans is certain of one thing: “This deal will change our lives.”
Even before Walmart discovered the Seven Sisters wine brand, Kleynhans had made a success of the label that she launched in 2005 from scratch.
After growing up with six sisters and a brother in a poor village, survival was difficult. Straight after graduating from high school, Kleynhans had to take a secretarial job at a construction company to help her family financially. When she didn’t get a promotion a few years later, she started working for a real estate agent, then moved into human resources and soon thereafter joined an insurance company.
She slowly worked her way up, gaining business experience with every new employment she entered.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-31284" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/MG_8361final-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MG_8361final-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MG_8361final-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MG_8361final-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MG_8361final.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“Throughout my career, I was working towards owning my own business that could provide a legacy for my family. Eventually, I felt ready to set up my own company,” says Kleynhans.
She launched African Roots Wine Brands in 2005 after the South African government set up a trust to help formerly disadvantaged people enter the wine industry. Her idea was to sell wines that would represent her family and her cultural history.
For a year, Kleynhans searched for the right wine farm to partner with. She wanted a farm that could provide her with seven different wine styles—one for her and each of her six sisters. She eventually teamed up with Swartland, a winery located in the region where she grew up.
“My vision was to build a company that my sisters could be part of. Because we are seven, I wanted to partner with a winery that could provide us with a wide range of styles,” she says.
Each sister personally helped create their own varietal. The result: a Bukettraube Odelia, Rosé Twena, Moscato Yolanda, Sauvignon Blanc Vivian, Pinotage Dawn, Merlot June and Cabernet Sauvignon Carol.
That same year, Kleynhans took the Seven Sisters range to the Soweto Wine Festival near Johannesburg. It was the first trade fair she had ever attended. As luck would have it, she met an American importer, Selena Cuffe of Heritage Link Brands, who invited her to present her wines in the US.
It was a tough start. Without an advertising budget to speak of, Kleynhans had to market her wines by doing road shows across the US, garnering customers one by one. It was a tedious strategy, but it paid off over time.
The first container of Seven Sister wines left South Africa in 2007. A year later, Kleynhans shipped four containers. In the third year, she sent nine. By early 2013, African Roots Wine Brands was selling 110,000 bottles a year in 42 states to supermarkets, wine stores, specialty stores and discounters. Buyers included major chain stores, such as Whole Foods, Super Value and Disneyworld.
“Over the years, we managed to become an established brand in the US. Our drive is to grow a household brand,” says Kleynhans.
She also landed a four-year contract with American Airlines, which served the Vivian Sauvignon Blanc on all of its flights.
“It was one of the first big business deals we signed. It helped us a lot to stay in the game,” she says.
Ironically, it took Kleynhans longer to enter the wine market in her home country.
“South Africa only woke up after we made a name for ourselves in the US. We’ve been trying for some years to get into the South African market. But it’s so saturated, we struggled to gain entry,” says Kleynhans.
When Walmart bought a 52% stake in South African chain Massmart in mid-2011 for a whopping $1.59 billion, South African antitrust authorities, concerned that the deal would lead to job losses and product domination, obliged the retail giant to set up a $20 million-fund to support small suppliers.
It was through this fund that Kleynhans eventually managed to place Seven Sisters on Massmart’s Makro shelves in South Africa.
A second Walmart development fund, this time aimed at providing $20 billion to small, women-owned suppliers, represented the jackpot. Kleynhans had been supplying Seven Sisters to American retail warehouse chain Sam’s Club, one of Walmart’s sister companies, for a while.
“Walmart was looking for companies all over the world to find suppliers that met the criteria for the fund. The buyer from Sam’s Club hooked us up,” says Kleynhans.
From there, the deal snowballed. In December 2012, Walmart’s global sourcing manager visited Kleynhans at the nine-hectare farm she had just bought in Stellenbosch, one of South Africa’s top wine regions. He invited her to spend a day at Walmart’s headquarters in Arkansas in February last year. A month later, Kleynhans was invited to Walmart’s global supply summit. Shortly thereafter, she sealed the deal.
For Kleynhans, this is just the beginning. She recently planted her own cultivars—a Shiraz and a Chardonnay—which are tended by her brother, John Brutus, a viticulturist. The first bottles of the new label, to be named after her brother, will be sold from a boutique cellar on the estate by 2015.
Kleynhans is also opening a restaurant on the farm. Like all her ventures, the eatery will stay in the family and be managed by all seven sisters.
“It will be run like my mother’s dining room.”   FL

MG_8415final

Stateside  Sisterhood Success

Realistic and measurable transformation within certain South African industries has been a long journey. In some sectors it has warped definitions as boxes are ticked mechanically.  In others transformation is non-existent. The agricultural sector unfortunately still carries the stigma of embracing change at an extremely slow pace. Its record on transformation is patchy at best.
The wine industry is no different. With its sterling international reputation  and millions of liters of South African wine exported every year, vexed questions still remain on whether this generational industry has genuinely transformed and if so, to what extent?
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5762" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-076-077-ENTR-Wine-002-300x275.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="275" />
In this industry, broad-based black economic empowerment transactions are usually viewed as façades used to divert unwanted questions from those who are pro-transformation. Despite these realities, there are women who are working tirelessly towards altering the status quo, with passion, to bring about significant change within the wine industry.
Nondumiso Pikashe and Carmen Stevens are two of these women. Ignoring skeptics and forecasts of failure, their professional journeys are the result of meticulous timing, dedication and resilience. Responding to a call from former president Thabo Mbeki in 2004 for active players within South Africa’s economy, Pikashe decided to enter an industry completely foreign to her. “Curiosity was what attracted me to [winemaking],” she explains.
“I was always fascinated by wine because in the townships it was an alcoholic beverage that was associated with shattered homes…, while on the other hand, wine’s other face was one of sophistication, class and elegance.”
Wanting to find out more about the characteristics of wine, the more she researched, the more Pikashe became intoxicated by the industry. And thus, Ses’fikile wine was born.
‘Ses’fikile’ is isiXhosa for ‘we have arrived’.
“My wines symbolize the impact that the growing number of women within the industry are making, regardless of the challenges and obstacles they face,” she says, proudly. Pikashe is frustrated by the pace of change in the winemaking industry. She says little is being done in order to pique the curiosity of young black girls.
“I entered the industry through support from associations and groups which are now collectively known as the Wine Industry Development Agency. The work they are doing is commendable; however, more needs to be done.”
Another player in the South African winemaking industry is Carmen Stevens. Unlike Pikashe, Stevens says it was almost a given that she would enter the industry because of how passionate she had always felt about winemaking. A winemaker at the esteemed Amani estate in the Cape Winelands, her passion for the technicalities behind the process has earned her respect throughout the industry. With 18 years’ experience and two harvest internships – one in California and the other in France – under her belt, Stevens is set to make a significant change in the industry.
“I just knew that I wanted to make wine: the smell of the wine cellar; the enchanting and sometimes majestic process of the art of winemaking was fueled by fantasies I developed from reading through my mom’s romantic novels, which were set in the vineyards,” Stevens recalls.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5765" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-076-077-ENTR-Wine-001-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" />
Stevens is using her passion for wine to change women’s access to land and promote skills sharing.
“Agricultural land needs to be more affordable within the well-known wine regions to increase both female and black participation. The government needs to look into sustainable strategies in order to bring this into being. Skills transfer and development is another thing. Yes, there has been a visible growth of female winemakers within the industry, however, the growth in understanding of the industry holistically still needs much work,” she argues.
Stevens believes that the South African winemaking industry has the opportunity to increase the percentage of women and black role players.
She is upbeat about her future in the industry.
“Amani has given me the opportunity to make wines that are reflection of me, having a brand that carries my name is the next big step,” she says.
Carmen’s recent association with UK-based brand Naked Wine has inspired her to developing her own blends – Carmen Stevens Wines.
“Watching my brand growing each year has been a great experience; this puts me in a position to develop future winemakers as well, that is something that is necessary and which will be very humbling,” she concludes.

Ses’fikile We have arrived

Having lived in Nigeria for most of my humble life, I can comfortably say that there is at least one huge ‘all family and friends’ party going on everyday in this country. A couple of hedonistic folks have even suggested that the concept of African celebration was a Nigerian idea, complete with beer, wine, gourds of palm wine (a local brew), jollof rice and spicy chicken.
Consumer behavior such as this often becomes a trend. Very few folks, are therefore, totally surprised that, almost overnight, Nigerians have redefined the essence of celebration, and our affection for the eponymous produce of the Champagne region has become a sub-culture, a puzzling and dynamic social phenomenon with a deepening impact on the cultural and economic ethos of the land.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2142" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_3248-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
To comprehend the contemporary culture of champagne consumption in Nigeria, you would have to recognize one simple fact: Nigerians are showy, ambitious, possibly more ambitious for their own pockets.
Anyone who disagrees with this view should simply go grab a magnum of the latest bubbly stuff available. And that would be ‘Taste of Diamonds’ by luxury champagne brand Goût de Diamants.
Designed by UK-based, Nigerian luxury designer Alexander Amosu, this one-off drink for ‘very private’ clients is reputed to be the most expensive champagne in the world; the asking price for one bottle and its liquid content is $1.9 million.
But why would a French vinery approach a Nigerian to help it project its expensive brew to its target markets? The answer is somewhere between personal recognition and social economics: Amosu has a track record of co-creating and helping to launch luxury goods. He once showcased the world’s most expensive suit to high society in Lagos and in London, UK. Secondly, it helps that Amosu identifies with his Nigerian roots. In a place like Nigeria, poverty and affluence could be twin brothers.
The United Nations says 63% of Nigeria’s 160 million people are technically poor, existing on less than $2 a day. The country also has some of the world’s wealthiest folks. For instance, Aliko Dangote and Mike Adenuga, two of Africa’s wealthiest moguls (worth $20 billion and $4.7 billion). Dangote and his ilk on the Forbes rich list can afford bodyguards, bullet-proof cars, private jets, luxury yachts, authentic designer goods, stadium-size parties, little islands, and several cases of ‘Taste of Diamonds’. But will the Dangote’s of Africa spend so much lucre on one bottle of liquid lust? Who knows?
The point here is that a ‘struggling giant’, Africa’s most populous economy, has become the destination of choice for the world’s champagne brands. Already acknowledged as big spenders in the retail zones of Europe, North America and the Middle East, Nigerians at home have now been recognized as one of the fastest adopters of champagne drinks globally.
Adeoye Omotayo of R&amp;B Public Relations Ltd in Lagos observes that the Nigerian environment is, without a doubt, easily part of the global champagne culture.
“Whilst a bit of pocket power may be required to constantly savor the exquisite experience of drinking champagne, one thing that can be said about Nigerians regardless of their socio-economic status is that they are largely appreciative of the fine things in life, one of which is certainly sparkling wine from the best champagne houses of Europe,” he said.
A recent report by Euromonitor, the research firm, identifies the West African nation as having the fastest growing rate of new champagne consumption in the world, second only to France, and ahead of rapidly growing economies like Brazil and China, and established markets such as the USA and Australia.
In 2011, in value terms Nigerians might have gulped as much as $50 million worth of the sparkling French liquor, and in volume terms they allegedly drank more champagne than Mexicans, Russians and South Africans, three nationalities well known for their contributions to global drinking culture. By 2017 champagne consumption in Nigeria is expected to reach the 1.1 million liter mark, competing favorably with annual beer and soft drinks purchases.
“I am not surprised by this piece of news. It is actually not a revelation to me. Nigerians have exquisite tastes, they are always willing to explore new drinks, trust me, I know what I am talking about,” says Roger Chedid, a Lagos-based Lebanese businessman who trades in wines, spirits and champagne. “Nigerians who really drink champagne don’t just take any brand; they always go for the particular brands they like. They are brand loyalists and image conscious.”
Chedid’s liquor store cum mini-bar, in the posh Lagos neighborhood of Ikoyi, reflects the avuncular character of champagne consumers; friendly talk and soft jazzy music often fills the air as patrons stroll in for a cup of cappuccino and friendly company; a few minutes later, they stroll out with their stash, business done. After 14 years of doing business in Nigeria, Chedid’s clientele come from all over the country. Increasingly, customers now order their cases of ‘sparkling wine’ via email and over the phone. Similar establishments are opening shop all over Nigeria’s urban centers.
My expedition into the local champagne ecosystem revealed the top 10 champagne brands consumed by Nigerians, as Moët &amp; Chandon, Don Pérignon, Veuve Clicquot, Lauren Perrier, Nicolas Feuillatte, Louis Roederer, Lanson, Taittinger, Ayala and Ruinart. The cheapest item on this list is about $100, for a pony sized bottle. That would buy you about 100 bottles of pop soda (soft drinks).
“We like to live the life, and our penchant for acquired taste is legendary,” says Ebi Atawodi, an events and sponsorship executive for a Nigerian cellular operator. “Increasingly, our social and private parties are like champagne and wine competitions.”
Omotayo, the PR executive whose firm also represents some of the leading champagne brands in Nigeria, agrees with her.
“Indeed, Nigerians can be somewhat ostentatious, but even champagne, like cars, has its various grades and quality brands will continue to dominate the liquor landscape,” he says.
Champagne cognoscenti believe that technology, education, global hip hop culture, the runaway success of the local music and movie scene, the coming of age of the ‘Facebook and YouTube’ generation and the expansion of the elite middle class have helped to grow the local champagne market. Clearly, the social arithmetic of champagne consumption reflects the ‘aspirational realities’ of the bold, wealthy and the adventurous.
“There are millions of Nigerians who are well traveled and have experienced the best of all worlds,” says Kayode Oguntayo, wine connoisseur, business man and owner of 1662, a ritzy wine bar in Lagos.
He reckons that, despite the waning popularity of a Nigerian music genre, the ‘Highlife Culture’ of enjoyment, has remained with us.

$1.9 Million a Pop

It was a surreal night of luxury, to the clink of expensive glasses and the strains of jazz, high on Northcliff Hill overlooking Johannesburg. The valley below spreads out like a carpet of twinkling lights, cooled by a cutting wind from the west. On this night the news on the television is grave; it speaks of hungrier times, strikes and inflation.
At the top of the hill, these fears are far from the thoughts of the diners, who each paid $3,000 to sip on the finest and most expensive wines in the world. Around the table, millionaires chat of bouquet and burgundy. Hands, adorned with sparkling diamond rings, swirl balloons of wine. This is The White Club.
<div id="attachment_1941" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1941" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-1941" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/586-5-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The White Club, Northcliff, Johannesburg; 23 May 2013 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff</div>
It took inspiration from the London-based Whites, a club created by Francesco Bianco in 1693. It was at his house, which was later painted white, that members indulged in chocolate and bought tickets to the King’s and Royal Drury Lane Theaters. In 1773, The White Club became a place where wealthy men conversed over cigars and fine wine.
In 2009, René Dehn, founder of Gratis Denmark, stepped down as CEO, and took the idea on the road. Now, the Dane travels around the globe, accompanying his well-aged companions. Among them: a 1959 Dom Pérignon Rosé and a 1959 Château Lafite. The uncorking of the bottles always poses a challenge.
“It’s the only little part of the job that I don’t like. You’re a little bit excited but at the same time you are nervous… I’ve gotten over the fact that it feels like I am killing the bottle.”
It’s not easy moving vintage wine around the world. The bottles must be packaged in temperature-controlled cases that are shock absorbent to prevent damage.
For those who wish to join, there is only one way in.
<div id="attachment_1942" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1942" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-1942" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/586-61-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The White Club, Northcliff, Johannesburg; 23 May 2013 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff</div>
“You cannot buy your way into the club; it’s strictly by invite only. You have to attend one of the smaller dinners around the world in order to be considered for member status,” he says.
The qualities that make for the perfect White Club member include: the ability to be a good dinner partner, who is comfortable and easy going and, above all, willing to share. It’s about creating a sense of community, based on one common bond: the love of expensive wine.
“There was a South African member who missed a dinner in Switzerland. He sent a bottle from his private collection to the people around the table, for them to enjoy… that is the mindset and thinking of sharing that gives me a high.”
In May, The White Club made its third visit to the African continent, bringing along some of the most sought-after and rarest wines in the world. The star of the night was a $24,000 bottle of Château Pétrus, from 1947.
Two teams, each consisting of a wine sommelier and a renowned chef, competed for the best wine-dish pairing.
“I’ve done a springbok fillet, which is wrapped in slightly smoked springbok, served on a bed of butternut rösti… I’m serving it with a piece of foie gras, so it’s going to be something very classic, something very French,” says Coco Reinharz, a French chef from Sel et Poivre restaurant, in Sandton.
<div id="attachment_1946" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1946" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-1946" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/586-129-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The White Club, Northcliff, Johannesburg; 23 May 2013 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff</div>
Dehn believes that everyone wants to belong to an elite social club and that Africa is the right place, right now.
“It happens in countries where you have a new merging culture of being wealthy, where people have an idea of things they want to spend on.”
In this world of recession, how do White Club members keep to their luxurious pastime?
“In the level that we are doing it, recession doesn’t mean anything. There is always a percentage of people that are above the recession,” says Dehn.
On this night, hard times were far from the minds of the people who had the money to dine like kings and queens on the top of a hill, in the middle of Johannesburg.

Wine At $6,000 A Glass

It shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the ethno-cultural dynamics of tipple in West Africa that what you expect to see in a bottle isn’t always what you get to drink. This is especially so with wines. So let me now welcome you to the ‘social viticulture’ of West Africa. The agronomical version of this ‘culture’ doesn’t
exist around here. Grapes, you see, don’t do too well in desert or near-desert heat.
The bottle could, for instance, contain palm wine, the very affordable, hugely popular brew tapped from the trunk of the tropical palm tree and best consumed from a drinking gourd. The sweet-and-sour milky draught reputedly has prophylactic properties. Over the last 20 years, several entrepreneurial attempts to commercialize, commodify and transform this indigenous beverage into a bottled retail product have failed. Its fermented variant is an acidic, bitter brew best avoided by those who seek to protect their social reputations and their health. Urban and rural folk living anywhere between Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon refer to it as the ‘toxic tantalizer’.
Wine could also mean bottled fruit juice, sweet and sparkling, best served chilled and for those who lead ‘alcohol-free lives’ or love any colored fizzy stuff.
And of course, wine could mean ‘foreign wine’, the grapey drink from the vineyards of the world’s wine-growing regions. How French, German, Spanish, Swiss and Flemish wineries made the palm wine- producing belts of West Africa (and South America) and the rest of the world their target market is another story, for another day. It’s safe to say, though, that the spirit of the UN is actively in charge of proceedings in most wine shops worldwide. In West African shops and supermarkets, as elsewhere, wines from the ‘New World’ jostle for space with the ‘Old World’ wines.
Of course, the African Union member states don’t—or can’t—say much. As keen members of the international consumers’ club, they can only observe the fare as they ponder their growing affection for imported wine and its intended effect on their trade balances and fiscal positions. South Africa (the only wine producer in the AU) coughs up a tipple point once in a while, and let me reveal that the wines from South Africa are the most pocket-friendly in Nigeria and Ghana.
South Africa and China (another ‘New World’ wine producer) are two interesting case studies in global viticulture. While SA Inc., through SA Tourism, is only too eager to sell and showcase its wine portfolio to the rest of the world, China’s fast-expanding connoisseur class prefers ‘Old World’ wine (preferably French) to their homegrown variety. The Chinese have massive vineyards, but I haven’t yet seen any ‘Made in China’ wine in any shop in Cotonou, Lomé or Accra, despite having spied vodka made in India in downtown Lagos! Strange:
the Chinese don’t usually hoard anything salable.
In any case, a stroll into any wine shop in many Ivorian, Ghanaian, Senegalese, Gambian, Cameroonian, Gabonese or Nigerian cities will reveal racks of liquid warfare, symbolic of the silent but ongoing battle of the wine bottles going on between France, Germany, Spain, America, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Australia and, of course, South Africa (for their share of our disposable income).
In these parts, palm wine may have already lost the battle of the bottles. Don’t ask me for figures. The fact is, while varietals like chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc, shiraz, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir are measured in hector liters, nobody has been able to guesstimate how many gourds of West African palm wine are consumed.
According to those who should know, a healthy palm tree could have a fruitful lifespan of 10 years or more. But no one knows how many kegs of this indigenous wine are filled daily by traditional palm wine tappers. These guys are busy, for the present, but their numbers are thinning. No forward-thinking person wants his child to learn how to climb a palm tree. Palm-tree tapping is a collarless profession.
Wine retailers in central Lagos tell me that tons of international viticulture finds its way into Africa’s most-populous country in regular bottles, magnums and wooden cases daily, via formal and private channels. But few folk—and they must be connoisseurs—really worry about the geographical origin of their drinks. “Why bother?” someone asked at 1662, a ritzy wine bar in highbrow Ikoyi. “Most of the world’s winemakers don’t have a clue where Abuja is on the map.”
“Quite true, but why should they care?” another patron quipped.
“Ah, my brother,” the chap returned. “It is good to know what you don’t know. That’s the beginning of knowledge, after all. You know, a flute can mean different things. It is a musical instrument. It is also the appropriate glass to use for champagne.”

How Merlot Can You Go?

With all this talk about free trade, globalization and e-commerce, I wonder how anyone could not associate a sophisticated habit like wine sipping with Nigerian society.
Of course, as more countries produce and consume the astringent stuff, the product-to-market cycle has become a matter of global interest. Nigeria’s fast-growing wine industry is proof of its exposure to this global economy.
“Nigeria is a major wine destination,” says Obinna Otuonye, founder and chief executive of Just Wines, a Lagos-based wine retailer. He should know. Otuonye has spent the last 14 years sourcing and selling wines.
“I started small; I started with one bottle of wine in a bag, strolling around the streets of Lagos in search of customers. I gradually grew my business. Initially, my European friends were curiously surprised, they were very skeptical about my intentions. One German winemaker once asked me whether black people drank wine&#8230; now he knows better—he is currently one of my biggest suppliers.”
Viticulture is largely unknown in Nigeria. I may be ignorant on this but there are no wineries in West Africa. Wine drinking is however happening big time in Africa’s largest population patch. Vintage and non-vintage wines from the traditional and nouveau vineyards of the world are selling like never before in Lagos and, for this reason, Nigeria could very well be described as the China of Africa (except for the fact that China also produces some of its own wine).
“The economy is tough my brother but our people are drinking more… I sold more drinks, and more wines this Christmas than any other time over the last five years,” another Lagos-based retailer told FORBES AFRICA the week after the festivities; the period of the year when beer drinking peaks in these parts. In truth you only have to go to the shops and markets across Nigeria’s major cities to see the invasion of the red and pink bottles.
Foreign liquor, especially wine and champagne, is giving beer makers a good fight for a share of throats in the market.
“Nigeria could very well qualify to be Africa’s thirstiest economy,” analysts at BGL Group, an investment bank say. “When compared alongside other key markets in Africa and Europe, Nigeria’s per capita liquor consumption is relatively low and recent activity in the sector—business consolidations and new investments—mean more hectolitres of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages for the country’s burgeoning population.”
Beyond beer production and consumption, Nigerians are increasingly quaffing red, white and pink varieties of wine.
“To get a good feel of how and what Nigerians like to drink you have to understand our urban, contemporary way of life, and the numerous lifestyle influences and choices we have to contend with,” says Kayode Oguntayo, businessman, wine connoisseur and wine bar owner. His wine cafe, 1662, is one of many cozy joints springing up in cities like Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Benin and Port Harcourt. It is a ritzy, well-appointed bar complete with barbecue-grill, wall-mounted flat TV screen and cappuccino mixer. Located in the highbrow Ikoyi area of Lagos, it is a quaint and inconspicuous place, a shy contrast to the army of flashy fast food eateries, restaurants and nightclubs around.
“Why 1662?” FORBES AFRICA asked innocently.
“1662 is a significant year in the history of wine making. It was the year an English scientist called Christopher Merret (1614-1695) first documented the modern method of making wine,” Oguntayo replies. Interesting! Do any of his patrons know this?
“My customers are well-educated, accomplished business people and aspirational working class professionals. They want exclusivity and they like to enjoy their wine in a certain kind of milieu, away from the hustle—my role here is to provide my clientele with good quality. I have regular wines, but I prefer to stock vintage, full-bodied wines with character and balance.”
Conspicuous wine consumption al fresco is not an image you easily associate with Nigeria. But social culture is dynamic. Some of the world’s priciest wines would be found in the shops, cafes and private collections in Nigeria. A few hugely expensive labels in Messrs Otuonye and Oguntayo’s establishments can be found—Roederer Cristal, a champagne; Domaine de la Romanée Conti or Château Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux’s most famous label; Château l’Évangile, Château Pétrus, Château Ausone,  and Château Cheval Blanc. Nigerians have good taste, Otuonye says.
“The more expensive wines move faster than the cheaper ones.”
Wine merchants say three out of every five bottles of wine sold in Nigeria is red. By far the most common variants here are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Shiraz—popular pairings with the country’s spicy, meaty meals.
One could be forgiven for believing that South Africans out-wined the rest of the continent.
“There is no type of champagne that you will not find in Nigeria,” Otuonye says. “New drinks continue to arrive every week mainly because there is growing demand for the best wines from the wine growing regions of the world.”
“Credibility and word of mouth marketing is important in this kind of business and we do what we need to do, which is basically to stock the best wines from the vineyards of Europe and other key wine regions.”
Oguntayo explains quite tactfully, that a wine drinking habit indicates a certain level of social and economic refinement—hinting that wine may not be for riff-raff.
In this economy, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is huge, having a regular glass of wine for leisure whilst lounging around with the lads or with a meal is a distant dream for many. Some of these wines cost as much as $80 a bottle. And that’s cheap, by global standards. Really cheap wines would retail for about $8 to $16 a bottle. By comparison, $10 would buy you about 12 bottles of beer or a 24-bottle crate of soft drinks.
Despite these choice-cost comparisons, the purported health benefits and appeal of wine makes its consumption a growing social phenomenon.
“You must realise that regardless of their pocket-power, most Nigerians are aspirational social animals,” says Dele Martins, a Lagos-based business executive.
Like most other wine-friendly parts of the world, the dynamic of the Nigerian wine scene combines both the esoteric and the obvious, especially with brand names like 1662 and Just Wines. Driving this dynamic forward is the potent mix of opportunity, passion and the pursuit of profit. After all the wine business is a global game: free trade, but no free drinks.

A Corky Little Upstart

Portmanteau–a blend of two or more, and that is exactly what Pinotage is. Not a hybrid like many of us in the industry thought, for a hybrid is a blend of two species (vitis species). Pinotage is Pinor Noir put together with Hermitage, also known as Cinsaut.
Therefore, Pino + Hermitage = Pinotage (vitis vinifera). Easy enough.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/KIETH_014-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />
Pinotage was invented by one Prof Izak Perold in 1925 in South Africa. As many great stories go, it was a creation born of blind chance. Perold tested the new grape and left it to grow in his test garden. One day his garden was uprooted, but the grape was saved and became the father and mother of the Pinotage that’s grown and vinified on many wine farms in South Africa’s Western Cape. People drink Pinotage on all continents.
Pinotage is produced in many styles, unwooded so it shows a juicy, easy drinking quality, or from older vines, which are then matured in oak to make a serious wine. The wine has not always enjoyed much favor, especially among foreign wine critics, who found it flabby–one even commented that it tasted like rusty nails. I tend to agree when I find Pinotage being made in a heavy, over-extracted style. Pinor Noir is a very delicate and difficult grape to work with, bearing in mind that Pinotage is a blend of Pinor Noir and Hermitage. Wine makers, for a long time, would merely bash the grape in new oak and pray for a lovely balanced wine.
The Pinotage producers began paying attention to the critics and wine drinkers and adjusted their wine-making skills. South African Sebastian Beaumont, in Botriver, makes his Pinotage in big open cement tanks and says that this method allows the wine to breathe, making for a smooth and richly textured wine.
Mocha Choca is  also another big craze in Pinotage making. Wooden staves are put into the wine while it’s maturing and the end result is wine that tastes like chocolate, mocha and coffee .
Pinotage is not limited to table wines. It can also be used for sparkling and dessert wine. The first house to produce sparkling wines in South Africa, Simonsig, has made lovely Pinotage-based bubbly, as have Moreson and Beyerskloof, to name but a few.
Now for my favorite part: Pinotage  and food. Pinotage has mostly strong hints of banana and meaty notes, and of course, chocolate. It is a wine that is very flexible and can be enjoyed by a multitude of tastebuds, depending on the style. The foods that go well with Pinotage are spicy and salty, so many light curries will work well, as will grilled fish (snoek) with a spicy sauce and salt.
This month, I have chosen a favorite home-grown dish to pair with Pinotage–bobotie.
Bobotie is a meat based dish with lots of spices like masala, turmeric and cumin. There are also cloves and pepper, and I would add a little chilli for some fire in the final taste. The dish is baked in the oven after all the ingredients have been mixed with white bread as the crust. The texture and flavor of the dish is savory, so the choice of Pinotage should be the same. A medium-bodied, matured wine from regions like Paarl and Stellenbosch should work well here. Spicy African meaty dishes will also pair nicely.
Recently, I attended the Soweto Wine Festival, a wine industry initiative aimed at introducing black people in the township to the many joys of wine appreciation. In a large hall in Soweto, people can taste South African wines in all their glory.
I went along to see if I could find any interesting Pinotages and found M Hudi (Harvester), from a farm owned by the Rangaka family-one of South Africa’s few black-owned wine farms. I was very impressed as the whole family was at the stand displaying and explaining their wines to the enthusiastic crowd. One chap who was with me at the stand said that he did not like Pinotage much, but was loving what was on offer from the Rangakas. I explained to him that wine growers have improved their techniques and what is available out there is really good stuff. Viva freedom of choice!
I was converted many years ago, as I was still learning about viticulture. It was thanks largely to Pinotage producer Beyers Trutter: he had made a Pinotage for the Cape Wine Makers Guild that I can still taste–it had a distinct nose of ox blood and a savory mouth that just sat there giving me endless joy.
Now to recap: Pinotage is a proudly South African grape that is used to make red wines of note and is prevalent mainly in landlocked wine regions like Stellenbosch and Paarl.
I watched a South African movie the other day: Paradise Stop, with Kenneth Nkosi. In the film there is a tender scene where two lovers are sharing a Pinotage made by my main man Beyers Trutter–the Diesel Pinotage from Beyerskloof.
If Pinotage be the food of love, pour on.

Tag: Wine

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Red Riches: This Entrepreneur Makes Wine From An Unconventional Source – Beetroot

Something To Wine About

‘A Cultural Hybrid’

Putting The Boer Into Bordeaux

Electrifying

Long Days Of Sun, Rugby And Wine

Uncooked Fish And Raw Ambition

Stateside Sisterhood Success

Ses’fikile We have arrived

$1.9 Million a Pop

Wine At $6,000 A Glass

How Merlot Can You Go?

A Corky Little Upstart

Viva Pinotage!