M’hudi Wines, co-founded by Malmsey Rangaka is South Africa’s first wholly black-owned wine tourism farm.
There’s a story behind the name M’hudi, which is derived from the Setswana word “Mohudi”, meaning “harvester”. A novel by Sol Plaatje of the same name, which was the first written by a black South African man to be published in English, was the inspiration behind the name adopted by South Africa’s first wholly-owned black wine tourism business.
M’hudi wines success is down to the hard work of the Rangaka family, who beat the odds to realise a dream. When Malmsey Rangaka was a young girl she travelled to the Western Cape, where she saw for the first time the grapes and vines from which wine is cultivated. The images of wine farms made a big impact on her, and those images never faded. She thought about what it would be like to own a wine farm, but there were many obstacles in the way of that dream: the biggest of these was apartheid, which restricted the land that blacks could own and limited their opportunities.
Malmsey had become a clinical psychologist, while her husband Diale had forged a successful career for himself in tertiary education. He served as Dean of Humanities at the University of the North West’s Mafikeng campus, later becoming Deputy Dean of Education at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto Campus.
In the early 2000s, Malmsey was eager to retire, but her dream of owning a wine farm, which she shared with Diale, had not died. At that time, the South African government was offering favourable loans for black farmers. Eventually, in 2003, Malmsey and Diale bought a small property, in need of a lot of work, on which guavas and grapes were growing, near Stellenbosch. It was a decision that many would have called crazy. Neither of them had any experience in wine-making. Not surprisingly, the learning curve proved to be steep. Thankfully for the Rangakas, their next-door neighbours, the Griers, from Villiera Wines, welcomed the newcomers to the area with open arms. Prize-winning wine maker Jeff Grier passed on his knowledge as the Rangakas tried to put all the theoretical knowledge they had learnt from books to practical use.
Strangely enough, M’hudi Wines made a name for itself overseas before it started to make a mark in South Africa. British retail giant Marks & Spencer, with almost 900 stores and nearly 78 000 employees worldwide, approached M’hudi for the exclusive rights to the wines in the United Kingdom. It was an offer too good to turn down. Lebogang explained why M’hudi first enjoyed success abroad rather than at home: “There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it’s easier to get funding to market our wines at international trade shows, and secondly, the competition is much fiercer in SA. There are so many new brands coming in every year. “We also have to deal with negative perceptions against black-owned wine brands,” Lebogang claims. They seem to have overcome the trials and tribulations however. Today M’hudi wines is a robust family business ran by Malmsey and Diale with the support help of sons Tseliso and Senyane as-well as daughter Lebogang.
Barnes & Noble describes the novel M’hudi thus: “A romantic epic set in the first half of the nineteenth century, the main action is unleashed by King Mzilikazi’s extermination campaign against the Barolong in 1832 at Kunana (nowadays Setlagole), and covers the resultant alliance of defeated peoples with Boer frontiersmen in a resistance movement leading to Battlehill (Vegkop, 1836) and the showdown at the Battle of Mosega (17 January 1839). Plaatje’s eponymous heroine [the M’hudi of the title] is an enduring symbol of the belief in a new day.” That belief in a new day echoes the hard work put into Mhudi Wines by the Rangaka family – except, in this instance, the rewards of that new day are evident today.
SOURCE: SOUTHAFRICA.INFO
