Viticulture and oenology (growing grapes and making wine) are unusual occupations for women, yet Ntsiki Biyela and Unathi Mantshongo left their rural roots to blaze a trail through vineyards and cellars across South Africa.
Viticulture and oenology are unusual occupations for women, yet Ntsiki Biyela and Unathi Mantshongo left their rural roots to blaze a trail through vineyards and cellars across South Africa.
“I filled mine in with the help of my Afrikaans teacher, and I also applied for an SAA wine education bursary,” says Biyela. On Biyela’s first day there, she did not understand a word and only realised the lecture was over “when the other students got up and left”. Biyela has won several awards – the first was the Michelangelo International Wine & Spirits Award in 2006 “for my 2004 Cape Cross”.
She loved the outdoors, so she and her mother Nokhanyiso, a single parent of three, decided quantity surveying would be a good idea.