Being a role model doesn’t sit comfortably with Ntsiki Biyela, who overcame modest beginnings in a poor, rural village to become the country’s first fully fledged African, female winemaker.
”It is a lot of pressure,” the 28-year-old told the media in an interview at her office on the grounds of the Stellekaya winery in the Western Cape’s premium winemaking district of Stellenbosch.
”I feel I have a responsibility. I have people looking up to me, and I don’t want to be responsible for their future not going right.”
In stark contrast to an industry where most African people are farm labourers, Biyela — who only had her first tipple when she went to university — oozes confidence as she invites visitors into her cluttered office.
She speaks passionately about her occupation while giving a tour of the cellar and patiently explaining the winemaking process.
Biyela was among the first batch of African women to qualify as winemakers, and the first to single-handedly take charge of a cellar.
She studied viticulture and oenology (the study of wine) at Stellenbosch University on a bursary from South African Airways, and started working at Stellekaya in 2004.
She has since nurtured to perfection four prize-winning wines.
Winemaking was not an obvious choice, and her acceptance of the bursary was prompted more by curiosity than conviction.
”The first time I tasted wine, in my first year at university, it was horrible,” said Biyela, pulling up her nose. ”But, with time, I learnt to appreciate and understand red wine and now I really love it!”
Being picked for the scholarship, she believes, was motivated in part by a realisation by the wine industry that it needed to bring on board people disadvantaged under the erstwhile racially segregated apartheid government.
”They needed some colour, some blending, you see,” Biyela quipped.
Statistics compiled by an industry committee show that less than 1% of South African wine farms are under African ownership, management or control.
The country was the world’s eight largest producer of wine, brandy and grape juice concentrate (one billion litres) in 2004.
About 13% of wine-grape producers questioned for a recent study said their employees took part in strategic and policy decision-making, while 5,51% of producers were engaged in black economic empowerment (BEE) shareholding schemes.
Just over 5% had introduced profit-sharing programmes for workers.
Sixty percent were in favour of becoming involved in BEE, said the report, but many did not know how to go about it or were fearful of having to forfeit their land.
South African Wine Industry Trust CEO Charles Erasmus believes there are moral, political and economic imperatives for black empowerment.
”We need to get the industry to understand that it also makes good business sense,” he said.
”BEE is not simply about giving away land, but about enlarging the economic cake to include others as well. If white farmers were to give shares in their businesses to black workers, all will benefit at the end of the day.”
African workers feeling a sense of ownership would be more inclined to plough extra into the businesses, explained Erasmus.
The government, industry and financial institutions, he added, should develop a joint plan to help previously disadvantaged individuals gain access to finance to acquire land and skills.
”Many of our new, black wine farmers are now, after five or six years, running into problems — largely as a result of bad business management.”
There was also a great opportunity, said Erasmus, for winemakers and producers to target the largely untapped African consumer market.
Even though she had developed a taste for wine, said Biyela, her family and friends remain unconvinced.
”I take wine home when I visit, but I know they just drink it to impress me.”
But she feels passionate about teaching fellow Africans to appreciate wine.
”You can train a palate. I trained mine.” — Sapa-AFP