The Ilembe cooperative winery, located next to Sugar Rush, received this season’s first batch of grapes on Wednesday, January 28.
Two tons of Villard Blanc grapes were delivered in crates on a truck owned and operated by members of the communities that form part of the cooperative.
“There are currently three vineyards which are situated in Maphumulo, Ndwedwe and Mandeni and people from within these areas were identified to work on these projects,” said Enterprise Ilembe marketing manager, Cheryl Peters.
She said they had agreements with the Ingwenyama Trust (belonging to King Goodwill Zwelithini) since the vineyards are on their land.
Viticulturist Daniel Märkl works with the co-ops and has trained them to plant and manage the vineyards on an ongoing basis.
Peters said the three vineyards currently employ 53 people and Enterprise Ilembe is working on the ownership model, meaning that those projects will eventually be owned by the cooperatives.
Enterprise Ilembe is currently in the process of reviewing various options, with the ultimate aim being for the winery to be open to the public for wine tastings.
The winery last season produced its first batch of the off-dry white wine but it has not sold at the volumes they would have liked it to.
“We had to apply for a liquor license which was only granted towards the latter part of last year. We are currently looking at various options around marketing and distribution channels to best see how we can make the wine work,” said Peters.
One of the challenges facing the success of wine farming in KZN is the climate. The Cape has a mediterranean climate and gets rain in winter while KZN has a tropical climate with summer rains.
Peters said the principles of vine growing were still the same but they needed to adapt to using grape cultivars that do well in wetter conditions and are more resistant to disease.
“The more rain, the more chance of vines getting diseases such as Downy Mildew,” said Peters.
She said they sprayed more intensely during the growing season after an intense period of rain.
“The only difference is that the humidity in KZN will result in us having grapes with a higher acidity but this can be controlled during the wine making process,” explained Peters.
The next batch of off-dry white wine is expected to be ready within about four months.
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