Biyela is tapping into the growing export market
With a history dating back more than three centuries, South Africa’s worldrenowned wine industry has long been the domain of generations of just a few elite white families.
But the emergence of a crop of new black players such as winemaker and owner of Aslina Wines, Ntsiki Biyela, is changing the make-up of the industry that is among the world’s top 10 wine producers.
Biyela, 39, shot to fame in 2004 as South Africa’s first black female winemaker, shattering stereotypes about black people’s affinity for wine. She now exports around the world.
After 13 years in the wine scene, Biyela believes the capital-intensive industry is “big enough” for new entrants, but admits it is “not easy to crack”.
“Apart from the financial aspect of it, the winemaking process demands dedication, from dealing with the vine growers, buyers and the consumers,” she said.
“You have to understand the whole value chain.”
Export-focused Aslina Wines, established three years ago, produces sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and a bordeaux blend sourced from around Stellenbosch, South Africa’s mountain-rimmed wine region near Cape Town. “I produce the wine myself and oversee the process from the beginning to [the] end.”
In a wine-bottling facility in Stellenbosch, hundreds of Aslina wines snake through a conveyor belt, ready to be packaged and shipped to destinations as far as the US, Germany, Ghana and Taiwan.
Biyela entered the industry after studying viticulture at Stellenbosch University, and worked as a resident winemaker at Stellekaya Winery, a family-owned producer.
Her cabernet sauvignon earned her South Africa’s Woman Winemaker of the Year award in 2009, affirming her place among the country’s top vintners in a sector still dominated by white men.
But the accolade is not something that Biyela likes to trade on, stressing instead the need to continuously improve in a notoriously picky industry that relies on reputation and quality. “When you get outside the country it’s not about you, it is about the South African brand. You compete with other big winemaking countries,” she added.
Aslina, named after Biyela’s late grandmother, has grown
‘ ‘ I oversee the process from the beginning to [the] end
from producing 2400 bottles of wine three years ago to 12 000 units this year. She wants to increase output to 18 000 bottles this year.
Growing up in Mahlabathini, a far-flung rural village in KwaZulu-Natal, Biyela never dreamt of being a winemaker, and only tasted it for the first time at the age of 20.
“I really did not like the taste, I thought it was horrible,” she said with an embarrassed grin.
As a teenager she was set on studying chemical engineering, but that dream was dashed by lack of funds.
Her fortunes changed when she was awarded a scholarship to study oenology and viticulture at Stellenbosch University in 1999, plucking her out of the village to the winemaking heartland, more than 1 600km away from home.
She still chuckles at the memory of seeing vineyards for the first time. “I kept wondering what were those short trees. I didn’t know what a vineyard looked like.
“I feel like the journey of winemaking chose me and I have embraced it.”
Before the birth of Aslina, Biyela partnered with American winemaker Helen Keplinger from Napa Valley, California in 2012.
The wine was produced for Wine for the World, a company that brings together top American winemakers and emerging producers.
Now she wants to use Aslina to inspire other winemakers, in a country where black people’s participation has long been that as labourers on farms, sometimes paid through the notorious “dop” when salaries were partially paid in cheap wine.
According to producers’ group Wines of South Africa, black people only have a 2% share in the industry. “The recent years have seen a remarkable number of black female entrepreneurs entering the industry,” said Alan Winde, Western Cape minister of economic opportunities.
But he said the next step must be black ownership of actual vineyards.
Aslina Wines joins other black-owned labels that have mushroomed over the last decade, taping into the growing export market. – AFP