When Carmen was a little girl growing up in Belhar in the Cape Flats in South Africa, she read about wines and winemaking in novels. The romanticized narrative that was articulated in these books, was hopeful and completely different from where she grew up and what she was exposed to. These stories took her to a world of abundance and prosperity where everything was lush and all elements coalesced, the food, the wine, the joy, all the things that she did not have as a young girl. She learned of the possibility to study winemaking from a friend’s uncle and after applying to Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute for two consecutive years and being rejected consecutively from 1991 – 1992 because she was not White, she pushed back and threatened to expose the agricultural institute’s racial discrimination to the media. As it turned out, she was eventually accepted to study with the institute and graduated in 1995 with a degree in winemaking. The period from 1990 – 1994 were some of the most tumultuous years for South Africa, a country in transition from apartheid to democracy. Carmen bears the cuts and bruises that come with being “a first” to break boundaries and shares how she has had to overcome the cultural biases that are woven into everyday encounters and experiences in the South African wine industry. She emphasizes that she was the first Black South African to study winemaking, not because no one before her was interested, but because of the…
Get exclusive access to this story
Subscribe to Nomad Africa and get unlimited access to our exclusive articles on African cultural heritage, travel tips, tourism news updates, industry trends and insights. Your subscription will also help support tourism in Africa. Subscription starts from only R15 ($1 USD) per month.*
Already a subscriber? Login here
*Charged for the first month after which standard rates apply. Cancel anytime.
...
