Celebrating Black History Month

Ntsiki grew up in Mahlabathini, a rural village in KwaZulu-Natal, and matriculated from high school in 1996. Having spent a year as a domestic worker, she was awarded a scholarship to study winemaking at Stellenbosch University in 1999. She graduated in 2003 with a BSc in Agriculture (Viticulture and Oenology) and joined boutique winery Stellekaya as their winemaker the following year.

Ntsiki’s ambition to create her own wines grew following a collaboration with Californian winemaker, Helen Kiplinger, as part of Mika Bulmash’s Wine for the World initiative.

It was over dinner and a glass of wine with her new colleagues in the USA that she shared the story of the inspiration behind her ambition. Her beloved grandmother was the guiding light in her life and it became obvious that her new brand should be named Aslina in the matriarch’s honour.

Tasting notes:

A complex, fruity Chardonnay with a creamy and full texture. Partial wooding gives this wine the edge, allowing it to showcase hints of tropical fruit and lime. Reminiscent of premium Pouilly-Fuissé, the wine has a well-balanced acidity.

Tasting notes:

A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. The bold structure, smoothness and complexity of this wine are a near-perfect representation of the matriarch of the family

The name Mama Afrika symbolises togetherness, hope and passion for the community of Zwelethemba (Mpelo’s hometown), where a particular mountain – named ‘Mama Afrika’ by the local inhabitants, resembling the structure of both an elephant and a human looking up – has been a shining armour and offered inspiration for decades. While in school, Mpelo spent his childhood and formative years working on the wine farms of Worcester and has since striven to forge a business that will resonate as a “community story rather than a personal glory”.

Tasting notes:

Premium, oaked Chardonnay from the Western Cape. Soft orchard fruits vie with tropical notes of melon and pineapple, all balanced with a fine seam of acidity. This is complemented by well-judged classy oak which adds toast, butter and vanilla to the rich, broad palate.

Tasting notes:

This richly fruited South African Malbec from ‘valley of wine and roses’ retains elegant freshness throughout. Fermentation is in stainless steel before spending 15 month in French oak, only 20% of which is new. The wine has the signature, plush tannins of the variety, and the palate leads with raspberry and redcurrant, followed by a succulent, jammy core with cocoa, coffee and a hint of spice on the finish.

Rüdger’s wine journey started y in 2010, a ‘coloured boy’ hailing from the south coast of South Africa from a town called George where he started his first year at Stellenbosch University. With years gone by and passion growing for the grape, little by little he eventually graduated in 2013.

He remembers clearly in his fourth year he was approached by Magda Vorster, facilitator for the Cape Winemakers Guild Protégé programme. She showed him all the amazing things that the programme provides and basically told him that the sky is the limit. After a few interviews with winemakers from the Guild Rüdger received the great news that his application was successful and that, starting in 2014, he would be part of the Cape Winemakers Guild Protégé programme.

In 2018 Rüdger was awarded Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year. Read more about Rüdger’s achievements though Jancis Robinson’s full article here.

Tasting notes:

This elegant white wine was crafted from a 28-year-old Sauvignon Blanc vineyard, located in the Jonkershoek Valley. Traditionally made, with barrel fermentation and lees ageing for added texture and complexity. It has a modern fruitiness coupled with a classic structure.

Tasting notes:

Brooding dark fruits, blackcurrant jam, damson and black plum. Black olive tapenade. An astonishingly pure, mesmerising and other worldly expression that is testament to why South African Syrah is positioned as a world beater on the global stage.

Tasting notes:

This wine has the classic notes of lemon and grapefruit you’d expect from Chardonnay, with hints of almond and a fine mineral finish.

Tasting notes:

An elegant, lightly-wooded style of Pinot Noir showing classic strawberry and red cherry notes coupled with a hint of spice. A firm, yet silky-smooth tannin-structure supports the lovely bright fruit characteristics of the wine.

Kiara’s story starts in a place called Mitchells Plain where she grew up with her family. Mitchells Plain is what one would call a ghetto, a township on the Cape Flats south-east of Cape Town where Cape coloured people live. While staying there she was exposed to many things (mainly due to the socio-economic circumstances of people living there) such as gangsterism, drugs, alcohol abuse and violence because of alcohol abuse.

Kiara applied to the CWG Protégé Programme and was successful. The CWG Protégé Programme is a great initiative that employs newly graduated winemakers that come from previously disadvantaged backgrounds and gives them the opportunity to work with and be mentored by some of South Africa’s best winemakers.

Kiara Scott was the youngest female Head Winemaker in South Africa at the age of 26. Read Jancis Robinson’s full article here.

Tasting notes:

Almost Burgundian in style, you’d be forgiven for calling it so if not for the wax and lanolin character which delivers notes of green apple and pear, star anise, yellow plum and nectarine complemented by lemon curd on brioche.

Tasting notes:

Clotted-cream, panna-cotta breadth and sensuousness. Deep apricot-sweet acidity. Ripe, ripe passion fruit; rich Alphonso mango. Wild sage and aromatic in a pine-resin way that is almost like a pencil-light sketch of retsina. Addictively bitter nuttiness. Gravel dust, wet cement, snowdrop perfume and sweet mint. Quinine snap. Baobab fruit. One moment satin glass, the next as slippery as a chiffon scarf. A mesmeric perplexity of flavour and texture. Long, quietly demanding finish.