(MENAFN- The Post)
ROMA – BEV Wines is one of the most elegant wine brands to have come out of the Mountain Kingdom. Once in time, the aspiring wine producer, Mpho Seakhoa Maphathe, settled in her grandfather's farm for some time.
This was during the Covid-19 lockdown and she had enough time to do what she had always wanted to do. Taking an advantage of grapes growing in the farm, she produced 17 bottles of wine and named them Bev Wines.
That was the beginning of the brand, Bev Wines.
“I produced Bev Wines as a way to follow in the footsteps of my grandparents,” she said.
She said one of her granddads produced wine as a hobby, which he shared with family and friends year after year. Another of her granddads had a farm in which she grew grapes. Here is her story.
“I was born in a family of people who were crazy about entrepreneurship,” she said.
“With such influence in the background, I fell in love with Culinary Arts (the art of preparing, cooking, presenting and serving food) and Events Management. Now I am in both wine and events management for a living.”
One of her granddads is the famous Black Jesus (BJ, real name was Harebatho Musa) from Teya-Teyaneng. Although he was known for many other things such as music, he was apparently fascinated by wine-making too, even though it was on a small-scale.
“He liked making wine and sharing it with friends and family at least once a year,” she said.
Yet another of her granddads, Mathibeli Seipobi, owned a family farm in Clocolan, South Africa, where he grew grapes. It is no wonder then that the words“grapes” and“wine” kept ringing back and forth in her mind over the years.
When it was time for college, she took up a course in Hospitality Management at the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, South Africa. She then proceeded to take another course in Events Management at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in South Africa.
Interestingly, as part of the Hospitality Management course, she took up a module in“Cape Wine Academy” where she learned the secrets of making wine. After schooling, she picked a kind of job that would make her appreciate wine even further.
“I became a flight attendant with two different regional airlines,” she said.
Well, that kind of a job will take you places.
“I found myself criss-crossing Southern Africa and experiencing and appreciating all kinds of wines along the way.”
At some point, she had an opportunity to travel to Cape Town. She had always wanted to visit wine-making factories there and to seek a mentor and, fortunately, she located one. Later, Covid-19 hit and that presented her with an opportunity of a lifetime.
Liquor was banned in South Africa during the lockdown.Many people were desperately resorting to makeshift alternatives. She wanted to go deeper. Her thoughts flashed back to the days when her granddad used to make liquor as a hobby.
To follow in his footsteps, she had always wanted to sit down and experiment with wines and here was the opportunity. She retired into her granddad's farm in Clocolan and experimented with grapes there.
Her upbringing demanded it, her learning experiences in wine-making demanded it, her travelling demanded it — now it was time to do it. She did it. In the end, she produced 17 bottles of wine, good wine.
It was a feat. It was also the birth of Bev Wines.
“I decided to name my wine Bev Wines where Bev stood for Beverages.”
It's a name easy to brand. The younger generation, who she is targeting, also find it easy to pronounce the name. With time, and through her mentor, she partnered with a wine producer in Stellenbosch and they are now producing wines that could be scaled up. Listen as she talks about the wine she loves.
“Bev is an African woman wine,” she said.
“We pride ourselves with unique blends and quality wines in bottles of African Print and Origin. We aspire to introduce virgin pallets to the wine culture that work wonders with food chocolates, cheeses and the culinary world at large. Bev is a beautiful beverage that combines flavours of Southern Africa and Lesotho.”
Her goals are to set up a giant cellar to do fermentation in Lesotho and to work with women farmers to grow the vines using a cooperative model that advocates for 95 percent local production of grapes.
Own Correspondent
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