Former President Nelson Mandela’s daughter Makaziwe and grandaughter Tukwini launched the House of Mandela range of wines at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival 2013 in Miami last week, utilising Fairview, Hartenberg, Thelema and Villiera to ‘produce their grapes‘, reports The Miami Herald!
Mother and daughter have vastly differing backgrounds, Makaziwe being an anthropologist and the Chairman of the company. Tukwini is the Marketing Director, having previously worked as head of marketing at ABSA Wealth and Private Bank. A suggestion by a family friend led to the new venture over two years ago, especially as, according to Tukwini, South Africa is ‘essentially a brown-bag, Foster’s-drinking country‘! Their different backgrounds were useful in researching the wine industry, ‘digging beyond the soil’, and finding symbolism in the winding vines, ‘which is really about the challenges of life. Yet it produces good fruit. The struggle for freedom is just like that’, said Tukwini. The company logo in the shape of a bee symbolizes 
“humanity, compassion, sharing and ‘one who is brave enough to challenge the status quo'”, reports the Huffington Post.
Interviewing 70 wine estates, their choice fell on the four family-owned wine estates ‘with good affirmative-action practices’, making two wine portfolios. The Royal Reserve collection consists of a Fairview Shiraz 2007, Hartenberg Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, and Thelema Chardonnay 2009, in a price range of $48 – $51. The Thembu collection (all 2012 vintage) consists of a Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, and Pinotage, selling at around R120 per bottle. Villiera makes the MCC. A sweet wine is on the cards, a favourite of their father and grandfather. Part of the proceeds of the Thembu collection sales will be ploughed back to the benefit of the farm workers.
House of Mandela, www.houseofmandela.com No Social Media nor telephone contact details available.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
20
3070
27k
20