In 1995, Carmen Stevens made history when she qualified as the first black person and the first black woman to qualify as a winemaker in South Africa.
Initially inspired to study winemaking by the novels she read as a teenager; Carmen’s career has been driven by her passion. She eventually established her own premium wine brand in 2011, Carmen Stevens Wines.
Carmen says that although there were black people who were interested in following a career in winemaking: “before, we, as black people were not allowed to study winemaking.”
While the transition to democracy was a fraught time in South Africa’s social timeline, Carmen’s determination is singular in its reflection of history. In the book and accompanying film, The Colour of Wine, she recounts experiences such as ‘not speaking Afrikaans’ as some of the challenges she faced at Elsenburg College.
The university declined her application twice – in 1990 and 1991. The years of study were unparalleled series of racist and biased encounters during the years of transition from apartheid to electoral democracy.
The needle of time has moved forward and Carmen’s enterprising and resilient spirit has shifted forward with it. Over a decade of winemaking and consulting at various properties in South Africa led Carmen to start making her own wine in 2011. In 2019, Carmen Stevens opened her own winery in close proximity to where her winemaking journey had first begun, in Stellenbosch.
She concomitantly founded the Carmen Stevens Foundation which provided over 400 learners with soup in 2011 and currently provides two meals a day for over 10,000 learners from 53 schools.
Carmen Stevens Wines is one of the thirteen businesses that were selected to form part of The Wine Arc for an initial period of two years. The Wine Arc is a South African Wine Industry Transformation Unit (WITU) initiative which opened on 11 November 2021.
The Wine Arc, Stellenbosch
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