While growing up in the US, most people called that “The American Dream”, but I know firsthand that it is achievable anywhere, as long as the right intention and integrity is applied with the greatest of passion.
My first
experience with South African wine began on my very first day as a student at
the University of California, Davis as a freshman in the winemaking department.
A South African scholarship student approached me with a copy of Wine Spectator
magazine. On its cover that month was a picture of a classic Cape Dutch winery
with the mountains of Stellenbosch in the background glowing that coral colour
that only the Western Cape mountains do at sunset. “I’m going to South Africa!”
I declared on the spot.
At the time,
very little bottled South African wine was making its way to America. By the
time I graduated at UC Davis, Mulderbosch and Fairview where gracing many
shelves and were the only wines we really knew in California, but I was sure it
had to extend beyond that. So, in the early 2000s I read about a relatively new
winery at the time that had just entered the US market, Kevin Arnold’s
Waterford. Lucky for me, they accepted my application for an internship.
I landed in
South Africa, my wine destination dream, and instantly fell in love with the
country, its wines and its people. I ended up working with a very enthusiastic
group of local interns that were the offspring of some of the great South
African winemakers: Hempies du Toit, Danie Steytler, and Ross Gower. Right away
I was immersed in South Africa’s deep winemaking history, but it was only the
next year when I was working for Kevin Grant that a seed was planted in my
brain when he said, “Surely you want to start your own brand someday”. Two
years later, my husband, Chris Mullineux, and I did just that.
We found that
South Africa presented unique wine industry opportunities that made it possible
for a couple, still in their twenties, to start a wine brand from scratch:
fabulous, high quality old vines, relatively low requirements for startup
capital and an openness to new beginnings.
After starting
the Mullineux brand, we needed to start selling the wine. All of a sudden the
ease of starting a winery in South Africa presented other challenges. South
African wine was not as sought after as it is today, but one sommelier and wine
shop at a time, along with other committed winemakers, we broke down
preconceived notions about the quality and originality that South African wine
brings to the table. Every year the wines of South Africa are getting better.
I attribute this
to winemakers who, through imports and travel, have much better access to
foreign wines to use as benchmarks, plus a revival in attention to viticulture,
whether the vineyard is old or new, thanks to viticulturists like Rosa Kruger.
Now we are lucky
to see South African wines at high-end wine shops and restaurants all over the
world. Every year the classic wineries are strengthening their brands and more
‘young guns’ are branching out and breaking down the boundaries of winemaking
with fresh ideas, new techniques, resurrecting ancient techniques and working
with varieties that are not mainstream.
This is a very
exciting time to be in wine. Today South Africa for winemakers is like Paris
for writers in the 1920s. We cannot stop here, though. Globally, wine is a
dynamic industry and we must make sure the quality of South African wine
continues to rise. If it keeps going this way, though, I have no doubt
continued success is in South Africa’s wine future. I am so proud that South
Africa is where I am living my “American Dream”.
Industry Blank Slate.