As proud as ever, Margaret Sibiya nodded and tried to smile while she told her now grown-up and successful daughter the wine was delicious. But she couldn’t quite keep from grimacing at the unfamiliar tang of a dry red wine, no matter how well rounded and smooth the Michelangelo judges had found it.
That’s because Mrs Sibiya had never really tasted wine before. And neither had her daughter, before she arrived at the University of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape to begin her studies for a Bachelor of Science in Oenology and Viticulture. Today she is South Africa's first black female winemaker.
Determined to master the discipline she’d stumbled into, Biyela got a temporary job before the start of her studies at Delheim's Cellars outside Stellenbosch, working in the wine-tasting room.
“Every morning we would have to taste the wines before we put them out for the public, so I started developing a palate,” she says. “By the time I started first year I had tasted a range of wines, and had an idea of what the industry was about.”
Biyela seems to have a habit of jumping in the deep end. In 2004, her studies complete, she started her first real job at Stellakaya, a small boutique winery near Stellenbosch. The previous incumbent was still around and, having made all the calculations for the blending of the 2003 Boschetto, promptly went on holiday, leaving her to it – in her first week at work.
And then she started on the 2004 Boschetto, the first wine she made from scratch. It’s a blend of Cape Merlot, Shiraz and San Giovese, an Italian varietal. Creating the blend cost her some nerves and a few nights' sleep, and she was relieved when the Wines and Spirits Board passed it as fit for human consumption.
Biyela was on her way. The Cape Cross 2004, which was released in 2006, won her first Michelangelo gold medal. That’s the wine she took back home to her mum.
Today Biyela is the only fulltime winemaker at Stellekaya. It’s taken a while, she says, but she’s got into the rhythm of winemaking. The harvest season from February to April is busy, as she supervises grape-crushing and primary fermentation.
