By the very nature of its being, wine should be a fun business. This is why, for me, Mike Ratcliffe has always been the consummate wine professional. As he appears to just be having a lot of fun doing what he does.
Albeit it building and managing one of South Africa’s most successful premium wine brands in Vilafonté and its offshoot called Seriously Old Dirt, or running the country’s oldest and largest wine tourism body, Ratcliffe’s engaging demeanour exudes the impression of somebody who, well, just loves the business he’s in.
Whether the fun – and obvious challenges – of chairing Stellenbosch Wine Routes for the past nine years and Visit Stellenbosch for the past seven will be missed is not known just yet. But he comes across like a cowboy stepping down from the saddle after one helluva ride. On a horse he didn’t expect getting onto.
“Despite having grown up on Warwick Wine Estate on the Simonsberg and attending Stellenbosch Wine Routes shows since I was a pikkie in shorts, the machinations of wine tourism and its organisations have largely passed me by,” says Mike in the sunlit boardroom of Vilafonté HQ at Bosman’s Crossing. “I never sat on any tourism boards or anything like that. Then in 2017 Kobus Basson, then owner of Kleine Zalze, and chairman of the Stellenbosch Wine Routes, cornered me with a curveball. He was vacating the chair and reckoned I’d be keen to step into the role.”
Here one gets the impression that Ratcliffe’s decision to accept was driven by the pending challenges of local tourism as much as by his deep-rooted commitment to and understanding of the Stellenbosch winelands. And challenges can be fun.
“I knew that this role was going to require structural reform instead of being some ceremonial gig opening shows and cutting ribbons,” he says.
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