BEE, the SA wine industry, and a plug for Bilton ;-)

I just read a very interesting article about black economic empowerment in South Africa and its relation to the wine industry in the Western Cape.

This article mentions a young woman by the name of Moira van de Merwe who works for Bilton Wines, near Stellenbosch. Among the many wineries boyfriend of feitpingvin and I visited, Bilton was one of the wineries that impressed us most. Bilton is a relatively new winery; their first product was launched in 1998. They started with red wines and only this year started producing whites. Their wines (at least the ones we tasted - more details/tasting notes will come in a later JE) are excellent. If it's available where you are, try it. You won't be disappointed. We bought a few bottles to take back to Oslo with us. I wish we could have taken more...

Anyway, Moira van de Merwe was the young lady who set up the tasting for us. (Well, I'm quite sure it was her; I had forgotten her name. So unless they have several young black women participated in the program in France, it has to be her.) I have nothing but highly positive things to say about her. She's friendly, charming, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable. Oddly enough though, of all things, the one thing I remember most about her was our chit-chat about how boyfriend of feitpingvin and I found it strange that you can't get beer in supermarkets in South Africa (I'll save that one for another JE) and her shock and pleasant surprise to be able to buy beer in the supermarkets when she arrived in France... beer chat in a top-notch winery. WTF, right? :-P

It was quite cool reading about her on the BBC. As for the last bit... I think that she has the right personality type, attitude, and knowledge to go around the world marketing or doing some kind of PR for Bilton Wines. I truly hope it works out for her. And that she comes to Norway with her stash first ;-)