In 2004, Ntsiki became South Africa’s first black female winemaker. Remarkably, she was awarded a scholarship to study viticulture having never tasted wine before, and completed her degree in Afrikaans without prior knowledge of the language. Today, she crafts world renowned wines under her own label, Aslina, named after the grandmother who raised her.

An entrepreneur long before she was a wine estate owner, Penny’s path here wasn’t a straight line. A UK property crash once wiped out her first business and left her, a single mother of three, living in a homeless shelter for two years. She rebuilt from there into one of Britain’s wealthiest self-made women, and in 2013 turned a chance boat launch site on the Bot River Lagoon into Benguela Cove Estate, now one of Walker Bay’s most awarded cool climate wineries.

Known as the heartbreak grape, thin skinned and famously hard to grow. Hemel en Aarde, Afrikaans for Heaven and Earth, is the valley that proved it could be done, and where some of South Africa’s finest still comes from.

Lothian ‘Biosphere’ Elgin · 2022 $55 $49

Bosman ‘U.H.A’ Upper Hemel-en-Aarde · 2024 $65 $55

Benguela Cove Walker Bay · 2024 $70 $59

South Africa’s answer to Champagne, made in the same traditional way. First crafted in 1971 as Kaapse Vonkel (“Cape Sparkle”), and officially named Méthode Cap Classique in 1992, delivering rich brioche complexity and fine dancing bubbles, entirely our own.

Cuvée58 Brut Benguela Cove · Walker Bay $55 $49

Cuvée58 Rosé Benguela Cove · Walker Bay $55 $49

Armilla Blanc de Blanc Avondale · Paarl $80 $65