On 4 October, it is time to celebrate the great wine lists of South Africa for the first time. Sommelier Tawanda Marume, Best Sommelier of Zimbabwe 2020, joins the jury panel for the upcoming Star Wine List of the Year South Africa event.
"It feels really great and quite an honour. I have always wanted to contribute to our growing wine industry, and I feel this is an opportunity to add my contribution. It also is very exciting to be in the same judging panel as some of the best sommeliers in the world," he says.
The very first Star Wine List of the Year South Africa event will be held in Stellenbosch on October 4 - in cooperation with the South African Sommelier Association. The international jury members are Piotr Pietras MS, Heidi Mäkinen MW and the 2019 Best Sommelier of the World, Marc Almert. The awards are open to all South African wine lists - read more and apply here before the September 4 deadline.
Tawanda Marume got into the wine business around 2010 while working at a Cape Town restaurant. But the interest in wine started earlier, when he still lived in Zimbabwe.
"I was tasked to source wines for an office party, before I drank wine or even knew what it was. Later, when I moved to Stellenbosch to stay with my sister, I decided to enrol into the Cape Wine Academy program to learn more about wine."
In 2020 he won Best Sommelier of Zimbabwe, and today he lives in Johannesburg, where he founded a wine sales and distribution company: Expression Wines Africa.
"Currently, we have ten producers on our portfolio."
Click HERE to read the full interview.